Wow. Thank you, thank you for sharing your story. This happened to me, almost word for word (but I was openly shamed for what I wrote) when I was 12. I carry the shame and the fear of being honest with me 30 years later. I still wrote in my teens but then a teacher criticized/belittled my writing at uni and I gave it up for decades, despite writing being my greatest love and the thing I was best at growing up. I’ve never heard someone describe my experience so directly like this. I am the woman in her 40s picking up the pen for the first time in 30 years. She is me.
Dear Bec: you very welcome, and please know that my heart breaks and rejoices at the same time for you! I'm so sorry about your experience with the teacher and that you moved away from your love because of that! And at the same time, I'm so happy and inspired that you are back - with a pen in hand and writing and loving writing again! Cheering us in our new love affair and many, many pages written! M
Your candid advice to parents is beautiful and wise. I really felt this piece. Though I don't believe anyone read my adolescent diary, I was shamed for expressing my feelings and how I explored who I might become: the clothes I wore, the friends I chose. * This judgement lingers still and too often keeps me from the page. I bet this rings true for many women. Thank you for naming it. ❤️☘️
Dear Catherine: I'm so glad that it resonated with you! and that you identified for yourself the judgment that lingers and keeps you from the page. Let's keep writing and let's keep sharing. Cheering us both on, M!
I discovered (too late, actually) that having a memoir published is like standing outside on a cold day in your underwear. I didn't feel that way when I was writing it. It was just what happened to me, why I did what I did, and here--- here's what I learned. But now that the book is almost ready for publication (people might read it!!) I felt guilt. Guilt that I had said some unflattering things about my parents, both of whom loved me unconditionally, but a bit too much. My urge to get away, and be my own person, and all the pitfalls that came with that. My "getting away" involved the types of things my mother would have warned me about if she had any idea I would do such stupid things. As I say in my book, I had the kind of adventures that would scare your mother.
Dearest Rose: WOW! I love how you described your experience: standing outside on a cold day in underwear = publishing memoir! It's so viivid, and so accurate, and so elegant ant the same time! And yes, guilt, shame, somehow show up before, during and after writing, publishing! And it take immense amount of courage to keep going! So cheers to writing, and journaling and scipting and cheers to standing outside on a cold day in out underwear's!
Thank you for this beautiful and fragile reminder of the sacredness of a safe inner space, which necessarily includes respecting what that inner space is in dialogue with externally.
Magdalena, your perspective here is illuminating. I have my own version of my diary being read and used against me by my mother, so this struck a deep chord.
What stood out most is your insight about the methods. You realized that all the writing practices in the world are merely "managing the symptom" if your nervous system is still inhabiting the old story (that honesty=liability).
In my work, I see this exact pattern with high-achievers. They spend decades trapped on what I call the Medical Merry-Go-Round—trying to manage their physical or emotional pain with endless treatments, while completely ignoring the pain story that's driving it. They know the pain is there, but they don't know how to actually dissolve the story at the root.
When you wrote and burned that letter, you didn't just cope with the shame—you dissolved the story at its source. You took what I call the Pain Story Exit Ramp.
It’s a rare gift to articulate the difference between managing a symptom and true story dissolution so clearly. I'm so glad you found your exit and picked up the pen again, as did I.
You have distilled your emotional experience into something way deeper. Something somatic.
Something visceral.
It spoke to my own experiences of betrayals from people I implicitly trusted. Once that trust is broken, I don't know that it can ever really be recovered. It has me feeling shattered in many ways. I know I carry a lot of anger about it, and it is so buried in my subconscious, I have no idea how to deal with it.
It feels outside the realm of language.
I really look forward to reading what others have to say on this subject. I'm hoping for an opening. AND...I'll do as you suggest and continue to write!
When I was young I journaled my troubles and fears. I heard a relative a famous optimistic person interviewed years ago. They said of this optimistic person: we found his journals and learned what a depressed trouble person he was. I thought at the time if someone read my journals they'd think the same. That's when I destroyed all my past journals and take do care about what I write. I write my dreams, my awareness. If I write my troubles I view that healing them, and don't keep them.
You're so right, Magdalena, and I'm so glad to have read this today. I write a lot about shame, and where it starts. My mother read my journal, aged 14. In it, I wrote about a 24-year-old man who was 'doing things' to me. My mother's response, 'Do you not know your Father is a church deacon?' I learned to stay silent, and it's taken me half a century to write my truth. Fifty years of stuffing down pain. I still write the personal behind a paywall - it makes me feel safer.
Wow. Thank you, thank you for sharing your story. This happened to me, almost word for word (but I was openly shamed for what I wrote) when I was 12. I carry the shame and the fear of being honest with me 30 years later. I still wrote in my teens but then a teacher criticized/belittled my writing at uni and I gave it up for decades, despite writing being my greatest love and the thing I was best at growing up. I’ve never heard someone describe my experience so directly like this. I am the woman in her 40s picking up the pen for the first time in 30 years. She is me.
Dear Bec: you very welcome, and please know that my heart breaks and rejoices at the same time for you! I'm so sorry about your experience with the teacher and that you moved away from your love because of that! And at the same time, I'm so happy and inspired that you are back - with a pen in hand and writing and loving writing again! Cheering us in our new love affair and many, many pages written! M
Yes! It’s so scary to go back but I know it will be absolutely worth it ❤️❤️
Your candid advice to parents is beautiful and wise. I really felt this piece. Though I don't believe anyone read my adolescent diary, I was shamed for expressing my feelings and how I explored who I might become: the clothes I wore, the friends I chose. * This judgement lingers still and too often keeps me from the page. I bet this rings true for many women. Thank you for naming it. ❤️☘️
Dear Catherine: I'm so glad that it resonated with you! and that you identified for yourself the judgment that lingers and keeps you from the page. Let's keep writing and let's keep sharing. Cheering us both on, M!
I discovered (too late, actually) that having a memoir published is like standing outside on a cold day in your underwear. I didn't feel that way when I was writing it. It was just what happened to me, why I did what I did, and here--- here's what I learned. But now that the book is almost ready for publication (people might read it!!) I felt guilt. Guilt that I had said some unflattering things about my parents, both of whom loved me unconditionally, but a bit too much. My urge to get away, and be my own person, and all the pitfalls that came with that. My "getting away" involved the types of things my mother would have warned me about if she had any idea I would do such stupid things. As I say in my book, I had the kind of adventures that would scare your mother.
Dearest Rose: WOW! I love how you described your experience: standing outside on a cold day in underwear = publishing memoir! It's so viivid, and so accurate, and so elegant ant the same time! And yes, guilt, shame, somehow show up before, during and after writing, publishing! And it take immense amount of courage to keep going! So cheers to writing, and journaling and scipting and cheers to standing outside on a cold day in out underwear's!
Thanks Magdelena. Also standing outside in our underwear, while people walk by and look at you! (But that might be a bit melodramatic.)
LOL - sure! why NOT!!!
I love your spirit, Rose!
Thank you for this beautiful and fragile reminder of the sacredness of a safe inner space, which necessarily includes respecting what that inner space is in dialogue with externally.
Dear Alice: thank you for your kind and supportive words! And seeing the sacredness of the safe inner space! Cheering us both in creation more of it!
Magdalena, your perspective here is illuminating. I have my own version of my diary being read and used against me by my mother, so this struck a deep chord.
What stood out most is your insight about the methods. You realized that all the writing practices in the world are merely "managing the symptom" if your nervous system is still inhabiting the old story (that honesty=liability).
In my work, I see this exact pattern with high-achievers. They spend decades trapped on what I call the Medical Merry-Go-Round—trying to manage their physical or emotional pain with endless treatments, while completely ignoring the pain story that's driving it. They know the pain is there, but they don't know how to actually dissolve the story at the root.
When you wrote and burned that letter, you didn't just cope with the shame—you dissolved the story at its source. You took what I call the Pain Story Exit Ramp.
It’s a rare gift to articulate the difference between managing a symptom and true story dissolution so clearly. I'm so glad you found your exit and picked up the pen again, as did I.
Wow...this is really powerful.
You have distilled your emotional experience into something way deeper. Something somatic.
Something visceral.
It spoke to my own experiences of betrayals from people I implicitly trusted. Once that trust is broken, I don't know that it can ever really be recovered. It has me feeling shattered in many ways. I know I carry a lot of anger about it, and it is so buried in my subconscious, I have no idea how to deal with it.
It feels outside the realm of language.
I really look forward to reading what others have to say on this subject. I'm hoping for an opening. AND...I'll do as you suggest and continue to write!
Beautifully written. Thank you.
When I was young I journaled my troubles and fears. I heard a relative a famous optimistic person interviewed years ago. They said of this optimistic person: we found his journals and learned what a depressed trouble person he was. I thought at the time if someone read my journals they'd think the same. That's when I destroyed all my past journals and take do care about what I write. I write my dreams, my awareness. If I write my troubles I view that healing them, and don't keep them.
You're so right, Magdalena, and I'm so glad to have read this today. I write a lot about shame, and where it starts. My mother read my journal, aged 14. In it, I wrote about a 24-year-old man who was 'doing things' to me. My mother's response, 'Do you not know your Father is a church deacon?' I learned to stay silent, and it's taken me half a century to write my truth. Fifty years of stuffing down pain. I still write the personal behind a paywall - it makes me feel safer.
That is horrible!
Oh, it got worse. But at 57 I had therapy and at 58 went to university to do creative writing, and now, I feel free!