Six inner negative critic voices:
* It's already been done or written about.
* Nothing will change. You'll still be angry and haunted.
* Your writing quality is not enough to hold the reader.
* Your story is not that bad compared to others. Nothing to really complain about.
* Having doubts about recollections and interpretation. Maybe I was wrong.
* Others will have entirely different ideas about what happened.
People who will discourage writing memoir or journal:
* Pretty much anyone who knew me or thought they new me. I withheld a lot of information and they would think I'm exaggerating or making things up. Mrs. R shook her head at me and said "I don't remember hearing anything like that." Just because she had been acquainted with me since I was a toddler doesn't mean she actually knew me as a person.
* My bro. He would deny and argue with anything I said. He would joke that it was only sibling rivalry. He might even claim I was just as abusive. He would use excuses about how he was mistreated by parents and that's why he lashed out. That I was the favorite one. He can kiss my ass.
* Old friends might disagree about things I would say about them. Stacey is the only one who comes to mind. From my perspective, she stopped returning calls and answering letters around the first year of her marriage. It may be my religion, she never approved and really believed I would burn in hell. I was told a few years back she's even more fundamental then in high school. It may be because I was single and she distanced herself from single girls. I don't really think that is the case since she still talks to Karrie and Karrie was single at the time and lived far away and didn't communicate much.
Still want to write?
Yeah, I still do. If only just for me and I never actually do anything with this blog like turning it into a memoir.
I think one of the things that makes the abuse in my history unique is its subtlety. Many stories out there detail the physical violence from parents and others. There was that but there was a softer and more subtle mind influence going on in my past.
It was a matter of where the money was spent. How many words were spoken to whom. How much eye contact occurred. Showing up for extra-curricular events for one child and not the other. Being attacked for getting Bs in classes while the other sibling was congratulated for passing at all.
Many wouldn't consider this abuse, but the message is clear when you do the math. One sibling was considered valuable and worth the time, effort, and money spent. The other should be grateful for the condescension of a few moments and a few pennies.
It wears at you over time. I was an insightful kid and I got the message. I was not welcome in that house, and not considered a good investment. I had to fight for a lot of the treatment I got that was even close to equal.
I was raised to think that working hard and doing well would be rewarded accordingly. When the time came for college a bait and switch was attempted. I lost Mt Holyoke. I got accepted but my parents cried poverty on that one. But I did manage to get another good school and manage to get a scholarship which seemed to convince them.
Everything was a fight.
Early writing life:
I started with short stories and poetry. I didn't write a longer story until about 4th or 5th grade. My stories were usually based on movies I had seen where I didn't agree with the direction and re-wrote it to my liking or added myself as a character. By the time I was in high school I was creating unique stories.
I wrote romance and paranormal. A lot of it was a way to express fantasies and ideas about real love. I hadn't a clue myself so I invented stories to help either fill the loneliness or explore what love was supposed to look like. Of course, I got it wrong having no real examples to follow.
In college I kept up the poetry and even wrote a ton more. I stopped that as soon as I left SBU. Poetry required a certain mood for me and I just couldn't find the right place and the right motivation to continue it. It wasn't a big loss for me. I was never really attached to it. I think I wrote it mostly because I thought that's what really literate people did, I was supposed to and I was competitive with others.
I stopped writing narrative periodically over the next years. I spent 3 years of Julia's story. I wrote mostly diaries and not much else during graduate school. Lots of school papers. I wrote short stories for Long Ridge and then wrote a long novel a few years ago. I wrapped that up mostly before Bri was born. Never did anything with it. I had a whole book or two full of starts of stories and characters description written. I lost interest in romance and stopped writing all together. I still have everything. I don't throw my writing out if I can help it. My mother kept a copy of one of the first stories I wrote in second grade. I found it in a drawer when she died. I kept it and have it now in a scrap book along with some other stuff she saved of mine.
Teachers that Inspired:
Mrs. Dodge in 8th grade. She gave a tremendous amount of encouragement. She was the only teacher in my experience who did regular journaling in her class. I still have the stuff I wrote in a binder from her class.
She told me I reminded her of herself a little. She encouraged me to continue writing with every piece. She also once told me that I only speak when I have something important to say.
I remember in her class once, we were discussing the over arching theme of The Pearl. Everyone was catagorizing the characters and the object by what they represent abstractly. One of the students said the pearl is greed, the diver and family was good, and the hunters were evil. I remember sweating and getting light headed. I hated speaking in class. I had horrible sickening anxiety but I know that I had an idea that was different then everyone else's. I said roughly the same thing but with a different layer of meaning.
The diver and family are good, the pearl is greed, the hunters are evil, but the baby is innocence. When good and evil fight; innocence is lost. Mrs. Dodge stood up in her chair in excitement. I was very proud of myself at that moment. I felt like I had said something really important and went above and beyond the understanding of my classmates.
Family stories that were interesting:
I remember stories about Aunt Ellen. She was the only girl among four boys. I remember her brothers talking about the time that they tied her to the tree with the dog chain. I think this story helped me see the generation patter of the way girls are treated in the family. She was left there for a while yelling. I don't know if anyone heard her or simply let the boys have their way. Later she confronted grandma about how she neglected her because she was a girl. Even mom said that grandma never really cared for girls. I found it flattering and interesting that she seemed to like me and had me around for a few summers. She shared little bits of herself with me. I say little bits because I know there was a lot to her given she had decades of living and history. I try to remember as much as I can.
There was another story about Uncle Darryll and Dad setting an old car on fire. I guess they were smoking in it out in the field and didn't put out the butts properly. Fun fact: They both died of cancer.
What do you want to heal or change with writing?
I really want to get a handle on how much I dwell on the past. I still get very angry over things that I really should let go. I'm still angry at dad for favoring my bro, for not being able to comfort or be compassionate toward me. I'm still mad at him for treating mom as he did. I blame that on why she had so little emotion to give me. It also might be why she really had it in for my bro when he was younger. There were times when she used to wail on him. I don't know if her father was like that, or grandma, or if she was mad at dad so she took it out on "his" son.
I'm mad at her for not protecting me. I'm mad at her for dying. She had a preventable illness. If she just stopped drinking she could have lived another ten years maybe. She robbed Bri of a grandma. That pisses me off. I can't share this experience with her. She distanced herself from me, perhaps out of shame or grief that she knew she was dying. She was trying to keep it a secret from me.
I don't think I can ever forgive my brother. He was a parasite and a predator. He abused me and then preyed upon mom as soon as dad was out of the way and couldn't protect her. He is the lowest of the low.
I want to process all of this and let it go so it doesn't affect my relationship with my daughter. I'm really trying to watch my temper. I try very hard not to overreact to little things because she doesn't understand language yet and doesn't understand how things are done or what not to do or what is dangerous. I don't want her relationship with me broken.
I don't want the anger toward the men in my past to affect my relationship with my hubbie. He really doesn't deserve that hatred. I know I've come a long way from the rage I used to feel toward men in general but I still have my moments when I make a comment that's really down on guys and I know he can feel it. I also don't want to pass on this attitude to Bri. I'd like her to come to her own ideas. I'll still shape her in the direction of feminist. But that comes with the second X chromosome.
(from chapter one--questions at the end of the chapter--The Power of Memoir by Dr. Myers)
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