1 post tagged “memoir”

I am now close to 20K words on the childhood memoir I have been plugging away at for the last six months or so.  I want to keep going, to finish, but I am struggling with why I want to do this.  What is the backbone of the narrative?  It's not really about me, it's about growing up ("coming of age" if you must) at a specific place and time, surrounded by eccentric characters and a schizophrenic mother.  If it's about anything, it's about the experience of living with mental illness.  For me, this is just a somewhat disturbing, but basically mundane reality.  For potential readers it may bring some understanding about mental illness.  I believe that our culture ostracizes the mentally ill to a detrimental degree.  People often see psychotic behavior as the fault of the mentally ill person, and not merely a symptom that can and should be treated.

So, would putting my mom out there as the human face of mental illness help to generate understanding?  Perhaps it should morph into one of those "semi-autobiographical" works of fiction to depersonalize it a bit and give myself more room to play with the story.  On the other hand it may have more power as a recounting of actual events.  I'm not sure.  Right now, I am trying to put it all down on paper... then I will begin to mold it into its final form.  I just hope it does not turn out to be an exercise in self-indulgence.  Everyone has stories... is mine really worth elevating to literature?  I guess we'll find out.