emotional drain of writing a memoir

Hi everyone. I'm currently writing a memoir for the nano. I chose to write a memoir because it has always been buring my brain to write this. I know that if I tried writing anything else, I will be distracted by my want of writing a memoir. So I have to write this.

I've written all the cool bits now, and I have a pile of parts of my life that is really difficult to write about. I've now spent two days writing the more difficult parts, and crying through it. I knew I'd cry at some point (who wouldn't when writing a memoir) but to think that I'm going to have to do this everyday for the next two weeks is really draining me emotionally.

I would really appreciate it if anyone has any advice on how to deal with the emotions of writing a momoir.

Thank you.

I'm also doing a memoir. I've cried. I've been angry, depressed and moody.
My roommates are begining to get very annoyed.
But, i have to write this. It means a lot to me.
I don't really have any suggestions...but just keep in mind why this memoir is important to you!

Same problem here. But as Lizzy says, it's important to write even if it hurts.

I tell you though, people who don't write don't get the space you're in, even if they're close to you. I'm staying with my mom, who was extremely close to my wife (I'm writing about losing her to cancer). But I swear, this morning, I'm sitting here writing about a day the girl collapsed in pain and Mom's vacuuming around my feet, asking me how it's going. I think people just don't get that when you're writing, you're not really here, but you're in the world you're describing. With fiction, that can be a lot of fun. Not here in this memoir, not now.

So, I deal with it the way I deal with grief in general. Cry. Play with my dog. Go for a bike ride, or just for a walk. And I talk to my wife. She always listens.

I have times when I cry, especially when I describe the individual deaths of each of my cats. This is not flippant. I am trying to weave the lives of the cats that I have had during the 11 year period I am writing about.

I was feeling optimistic, whole, and wanted to share how I had recovered from an emotional and physical crisis. My synopsis is very upbeat and humorous. I started out just writing thoughts and incidents and personal philosophies and even cats that I felt like writing about and there was much humor and spirituality through that part. I even wrote about the crisis of my life but the emotional pain was so bad at that time was so bad that part of my brain seemed to shut down to protect me from feeling the extent of it.

But, then I started chronologically listing events of each year to try to decide what to expand and what to throw out and I became aware of how much pain and turmoil there has been in those years and even this week.. While I was trying to build my ability to rejoin the human race and learn to live positively with an energy draining chronic illness, my son became hell bent on self destruction and when he finally tried to clean up he developed a seizure disorder and suffered a brain injury. My husband, though not a "mean" person has temper outbursts during which he i verbally skewers me.

My brothers and I finally realized how much our internalizing of our mothers verbal assaults had held kept us from living the lives we could have. She started throwing these really scary fits and the Drs and others said it was dementia but we realized it was no different than what we grew up with. She was scarey to us and others now. How did we get through it as children. The answer is we hadn't.

This has been the last few days and it has given me very depressed feeling, afraid to cry, to admit how much trauma I have endured. I started questioning how I started out so upbeat. I guess there is my awareness of how I have improved my internal ability to cope with and/or to find joy in life that I can celebrate and share. Maybe here is another challenge to recognize the pain and understand our own acts of bravery that only we know. I think you who are crying are braver than me. I think I am afraid that if I cry I will never stop and I will lose what I have gained. I do think it is important to fill in with enjoyable activities whether going out with friends or watching soothing, familiar TV shows or reading books, or art or music.

Jeez this post has depressed me but I am going later to meet with a young friend at a wonderful coffee house to work on our projects side-by-side and I know I will be laughing and happy and concentrating on the joy of creativity and friendships so I will take a shower and then write and maybe a cat will want to cuddle until it is time to go.

Love to you all,
Stephanie

Thanks for starting this thread. I'm writing a fictionalized memoir, about a month or so I spent in hospitals, near death a couple of times, misdiagnosed, badly medicated, in altered states of consciousness. I thought changing the name and some salient points about all the parties involved would make it easier to work with and sometimes that's true. As I'm moving forward in book time, I'm dealing with the "mc" becoming more and more ill.

At first I was so thrilled at my high word count, I truly did not think I could do THAT. Then I realized I can't even show it to anyone, let alone publish it, because the "characters" are easily recognizable, and I've added things that didn't happen, and I imagine no one would want to read it, though many say they do.

Is this just an enormous effort for my own mental health? I dunno. But it's good to read what you all have to say.

Thanks,

Barbara

I know how everyone feels. I'm writing a memoir that involves my mental illness, "anomalous" experiences, woven together with philosophical topics. These "anomalous" experiences have actually caused me for heartache than good. But, I know that I must continue in the path that has been set for me, or so it seems.

I have a book about writing memoir called "Your Life as Story" by Tristine Rainer and she talks extensively about those dark moments. It's been a while since I've read it, but I believe she says that you must keep writing through it. For only then, will a genuine breakthrough occur.

Good luck!

My friend and I went to the coffee house, a beautiful old church. My friend is 26, I 62. She has been writing an historical novel, not for NaNO but she happy to have a time to get together just to work on her project. I talked to an old musician with tons of stories but who needs to have a voice to character converter in order to write them. A little 10 year old girl came up and wanted to know about NaNo because she loves to write. I took some time to talk to her because I love to encourage and inform people who ask about something that has given me joy. After a while, I told her I had to write. She came back and said "you were so nice to me, I would like to take you up to the choir loft to see the best view of this place." My husband arrived at that time to see me coming down from "playing" during my serious writing time. So much for next time I tell him I am going writing and he isn't invited. (LOL) We also met a sort of "mad" scientist who said he was a writer but he was writing a 50 page equation. I wasn't sure about him. When my husband talked to him later it turned out he was not just a crackpot but had a lot of technical knowledge. So for a while I forgot the sad and remembered the glad in life. I actually did write and was more disciplined about cutting off interruptions then I used to be. But, I didn't have a big total because I was doing search and find to see which cats I had written about and which I hadn't

Although I have done a lot of journaling of painful experiences in the past, there were a lot this year I didn't journal and some from the past I could revisit. I think after NaNo, I may try taking them 1 a week or 1 a month and write and cry the pain. There are some things in your life that will never stop bringing tears to your eyes as long as you live.

My favorite quote about life from Lord of the Rings: How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, when in your heart you begin to understand there is no going back? There are some things time cannot mend. Some hurts that go too deep that have taken hold.

The answer is that none of us gets through life unscarred but sometimes we can still find moments of awe or wonder that keep us going.

Love,
Stephanie

Wow thank you all so much for posting and sharing your experience!

Although the pain is not something that I wish on anyone, tt's good to know that I am not alone in this and that the whole thing is a natural progress.

My partner pointed out to me the other day that I have focused on all the tough times and there are very little mention of the wonderful times I've had. So I've started to litter nice memories in my memoir. I work on those bits when the painful bits gets too much.

I can understand that even if you fictionalise your life story, it'll be just as painful to write as a memoir. you still have to relive the experience to be able to write it in enough details to convey in its entirely.

WriverWriter, thank you very much for that Tolkin quote, it's a really beautiful messge.

I too am interjecting my novel with real events including the death of a dear friend of mine and the problems his friend (a fictionalized version of me) has with dealing with that. I dramatised a lot, but have researched quite a bit and well, that has been quite heavy. So, yeah, I sympathize with all above mentioned points.

Just wanted to add that.

It is walloping me more than I could have ever thought.

I figured "I've dealt with it all already. I can just write about it now in a detached and moved on tone."

HAH!

So many things I thought I was okay with - I'm not, at all. And then as I'm realizing this all these other things are welling up inside that I had forgotten. So I get them out and down on the page.

I am trying to do light things as well (find the positive) but I am surprised and ashamed that no matter how many times I head toward the light I'm pulled back down into some abyss I'd never even known about.

I have to remember that this is the reason I'm doing this. Not to ever "do anything with it" but to write my story, be true to what I experienced and what I felt. To deny all the dark and horrible would not make the light shine as bright. I have to keep myself from sugar coating and feeling guilty about what I am writing (as if God will come down and smote me for my thoughts and feelings). He won't and I need to remember that.

My memoir hurts to write. I just got through with my time in the psychiatric emergency room, and I can't stop crying because had I not gone there, I don't know if I'd be here right now. having to relive a moment like that just sucks rocks

Yep, I'm finding memoir writing very draining. More so than last year, although i think that is because I am focussing mostly on something that happened only two months ago, and it turns out i'm still raw.

Although that said, something happened today, pertinent to the other memoir that rocked me to the core. I think that whilst memoir writing is great, its also bloody hard!!!

Best of luck to everyone, i hope you not only complete 50,000 but also complete your memoirs :)

I went to the hospital today where the majority of my memoir takes place to review records & then go to the rooms where I was. There were a total of 9! I found out things I didn't know IF I believe everything that's in my records. also saw a few staff people I recognized, no major players. I was only allowed an hour to review my records and in that time only got through 5 (out of 26) days. I've been withdrawn and headachy since. otoh, I feel incredibly brave.


much more to say, but that's enuf for now,
Barbara

eeek I've now written all the light hearted parts, all I have left is the raw stuff that I had been avoiding writing. I am not looking forward to the new few days.

BRuth - I think it's amazing that you have gone back to 'where it occurred', it must take such strength to do that. It's one thing to relive the events in your mind, it's another thing altogether to be in the place where it happened.

Everyone please look after yourselves, we all need to be kind to ourselves through this process :)

I'm defs writing a memoir for Nano one day.
Once I've got the emotional distance from the situation I'm writing about. I don't want a nervous breakdown, and I'm not psychologically equipped to write about it yet lol.
I don't think I could ever go back to 'where it occurred'. I reckon I would go down hill again lol. You're braver than me!
Good luck with your memoirs everyone!

I've been gathering notes for a memoir I'm planning to work on after the holidays. Thank you all for your honest postings about the difficulties in working through your own memoirs. Your words are helping me to understand the feelings I'm experiencing. I know there will be some dark rooms I have to enter. It's good to know others have entered and survived. It helps those of us who are about to embark on the journey.

quillandink - of course you can enter the room and survive it. Memories, no matter how painful they are cannot kill you.

Also, you are a very different and much stronger person now than you were when that experience happened. You have strength and knowledge about you, about the people involved and about the world that you didn't know back then.

Even though you had no control when it happened, you do have full control of how you re-experience that even in your mind now.

:)

I took a memoir writing course at Hugo House this season, not even thinking about NaNoWriMo much when I did. Some of us have splintered off into a writing group of our own, and one other person in the group is also doing this challenge. There's something calming about getting together with people with whom I've been in class for six weeks, critiquing selections from each other's work and getting useful and encouraging feedback.

I'm right there with you about the pain of working on this, though. Indeed, I spent so much time procrastinating that I put on my big girl panties a few days ago and decided to bulldoze through the last half. eeek! That and I'm not prone to crying in public, so I'm making use of both a local tea shop and Hugo House for writing venues. :)

In the memoir threads before Nano starts there are lots of posts about what people are going to write and whether or not to include ficitonalised writing etc, but seldom is there much about coping with the emotional grind of it. It's only once you're underway and start to tackle harder times that you discover how much it can drag your mood down.

My own memoir is mostly fine. Parts of it were great fun to write, but when I write about sad times, it always starts to drag me down into the glooms. Having learned that this will happen I protect myself by only writing this in very small chunks, spread out between other stuff.

By way of general memoir guidance, Natalie Goldberg's book or CD 'Old Friend From Far Away' covers a lot of backgound about writing memoir, and gives enjoyable excerpts from other people's. I found it very helpful.

(And yWriter is a great tool for re-structuring your memoir. It makes it easy to see the overview of all the chapters/scenes/section headings, and helps you keep track of the parts you've already written/still have to write. )

Thanks for the recommendation for Natalie Goldberg's book, I've just downloaded it and listening to it now :)