Transcript for Writing Your Resilience Podcast Episode Twenty-Eight
Should I Honor Their Privacy or Break the Silence by Publishing My Memoir?
Welcome to the third episode in my season of Summer Shorts, a series of shorter episodes where you’ll hear from writers working in the trenches right alongside you. Each week they’ll share their fears, doubts, and questions they have about the craft of writing and the writing life. Consider it your backstage pass to my coaching practice.
This week, you’ll hear from Stephanie Shafran, a poet, memoirist, and former school counselor who’s working on a memoir about finding her voice and speaking her truth. During this episode, we explore one of memoir’s greatest challenges: the conflict between owning and sharing our truth, and respecting family members’ wishes.
Before we get to our conversation, I have a few questions for you. Do you have a history of being silenced? How does that influence the way you see your memoir? Have family members or others who play a role in your book asked not to be in it? What struggles do you face as you consider what to do? I hope you’ll ponder these questions as you listen along. Now, let’s get to my conversation with Stephanie Shafran.
Lisa [0:00] Well, hello, Stephanie. Welcome to the Writing Your Resilience Podcast. I am so happy to have you on because you’re one of my newsletter followers. And we have had many conversations and correspondences through email. So, it’s great to see your face.
Stephanie [0:13] Thank you so much, the same to you. I am a huge fan of yours. Yes, I subscribe to your newsletter. I also listen to your podcast faithfully. And I take your Jane Friedman workshops. In fact, this weekend, I am doing the one on Beat Sheets, a wonderful workshop that I took a long time ago. I haven’t gotten to that yet, but I just finished Save the Cat book, and now I’m going to get to it.
Lisa [0:41] Well, that’s the great thing about Jane’s courses. I mean, there is always a time limit of how long she keeps things out. But what’s great is that you have that recording. And so, you can do exactly what you did, which is read the book, get grounded in the material, and then digest what I share, so that you have a context. It’s always a great way to do it. So, I’m so glad. And thank you so much for all your support, that means so much to me. Today, you’re here to ask one of, I think, the most important and difficult questions that memoirists face. So, before we get to that question, tell us a little about you as a writer and your project.
Stephanie [1:24] I live in Northampton, Massachusetts, which is a very vibrant writers and artists community. I have been writing memoir, memoir essays for the past decade, I would say before that I expressed myself through poetry. And, in fact, in the spring of 2020, just as COVID hit the borders of our country and my town, I self-published a collection of those poems in a chapbook called Awakening.
Lisa [1:58] Yes, and I happen to have a copy. So, you’re working on a memoir? What would you like us to know about your project and I know that some people like to hold it close to the vest, and they don’t want to say a whole lot, and some people are like, let me tell you the elevator pitch. So where are you with this?
Stephanie [2:16] Well, I’m not going to give you the elevator pitch because I haven’t practiced that. But I am in the, in your words, the messy middle of the second draft. And the first draft, what I did was I took up the challenge that Marion Roach Smith gave a couple of years ago to finish a draft by the end of the year, you would have a half hour of her time. And I like challenges, so I took that up. I loved following her outline, it made a lot of sense to me. And by the time I got done with that draft, I realized that I was not the main character. And that was a real problem for me because in much of my life, I have not been the main character. So, it was good that I wrote that because I needed to get a lot of stuff out. But it’s a different memoir now. I am the main character. And certain things happen in my orbit. I have some huge life changes. And I’m not done yet. So, it’s hard. It’s hard work. I’m going very slow. I’m in a memoir group, so fortunately, I have deadlines. That keeps me honest. But it’s tough material to write. And I don’t know if you want me to talk a little bit about that.
Lisa [3:39] I think we’re going to get into it a little as we talk about your question. So, you’re in the messy middle. You started off with a project that was not about you and that recapitulated things that had happened in your life. And that happens to a lot of memoirists. They think they’re writing about themselves, suddenly they realize they’re not, and they go, “OMG, how do I revise this so that it’s about me?” And you’ve done that. And now what I hear from you is that you’re working to own and honor your truth, your experience. So how does that lead to your question?
Stephanie [4:19] Well, it leads to my question because as a trauma survivor, my father committed suicide when I was almost 11 years old. And for a variety of reasons, I was not allowed to grieve him, not allowed to go to the funeral. I was not involved in his funeral or burial services. My mother was intent on annihilating his memory from the family as her way of surviving. I didn’t realize this until I went into therapy right after I retired in 2017. And it was really through a couple of EMDR sessions that I discovered that because I was the last person to speak to him on the phone that very afternoon, I, in my child’s mind, interpreted that I was to blame. Because my mother left me out and she did not call me to her side to comfort me, I was left on my own. I just, you know, made this connection and that sense of blame and that sense of worthlessness carried through decades and decades and decades of my life.
Lisa [5:35] I want to first express my condolences for the loss of your father. As a fellow survivor of suicide loss, I know how complex that pain is. And suicide loss often leads to disenfranchised grief. So, if you’re listening and you don’t know what that is, disenfranchised grief is grief that is not acknowledged or is not given enough due. There’s so much shame and stigma around suicide just as a general principle and experience. I would imagine, you know, my brother died in 1997, and that’s way better than it was, you know, in the 80s or the 70s. So, I can only imagine how challenging that was when your father died. And then you had the double disenfranchisement of society not honoring this, society putting so much shame around it. I’m sure your mother had her reasons why she responded the way she did to survive. But the reality is the way she responded disenfranchised your grief even more, which led to these different stories that you told yourself. It makes total sense to me how you would get there, because suicide in general causes that guilt. And we have that survivor’s guilt of what could I have done? What did I miss? Everybody has that. But when you’re the last person to talk to them, and you’re shut out, that compounds things. So, you are trying to tell a powerful story. And you’re giving voice to something that has had no voice for a very long time. And you emailed me a really powerful question. Do you want to share it now?
Stephanie [7:25] Absolutely. How do I reconcile my need for transparency with other family members’ competing requests for privacy related to certain chapters of my life story that also include them?
Lisa [7:46] When family members want privacy, we want to honor in this conversation as much as we can. But I think I’m going to need a little context. So, while honoring their privacy as much as you can, what are the obstacles you’re facing? Like big picture concerns that people are facing or saying, like, you know, don’t publish this or don’t put me in because of x? What’s the x?
Stephanie [8:11] Well, the X is I have three daughters, okay. And my daughters, I think they don’t want to know me as a writer. They certainly don’t want to read my writing. They’ve made that very clear. That’s very complicated. There is a history of being silenced my whole life. Frankly, my mother silenced me for her own needs. And then I was in a 30-year marriage where I was silenced. And a lot of gaslighting, and it was only through writing that I found my voice. I was absolutely drowning psychologically, emotionally, and physically. And through my writing in community with women, I did discover a voice, and that led to a lot of self-examination and self-reckoning. With the help of some tremendous women, I discovered so much because much of my life, I lived in a dissociative state of mind. That was really my coping strategy.
Lisa [9:26] And that is a common coping strategy, especially when someone has experienced childhood trauma. They have been put in situations where they have to suppress their emotions. That’s one of the ways that we can respond to trauma—dissociation. So, what I’m hearing from you is that the people who are resistant to this are your daughters. Is that the main concern? Are there other people in the family who may show up in the story?
Stephanie [10:00] Certainly, the other person who’s going to show up in the story is their father. And he’s still very much involved in their lives and in our grandchildren’s lives. What I’ve told myself in order to go on writing this story, because I do understand that I need to write it, and that it’s very redemptive to write it. So, what I have told myself to really give myself permission to do that under these constraints is, “Oh, I won’t publish it.” You know, “Oh, if I put that aside, and just, you know, I’m not going to publish this.” Maybe I’ll publish chapters. I have published memoir essays. Not directly from the memoir, but certainly related to the content of the memoir. And so, I’ve given myself permission to not publish it. But again, coming from a history of being silenced, I feel uncomfortable about that. In some ways, I have a right to my own truth. But I don’t want to hurt, you know, I love these daughters. I don’t want to hurt them any more than they’ve already been hurt. So, it leaves me between a rock and a hard place, really.
Lisa [11:25]
Yeah. And I think you’re bringing up some great points for us to wrestle with, that show up a lot in memoir. How do we own our truths and feel like we can express ourselves while also being respectful of other people’s experiences, who may or may not want to be a part of our story? And when we’re writing in the messy middle, there’s this fulcrum point. There’s this point where the story is for us, we’re trying to figure out what happened to us, what is our truth, all those things. And during that phase, it is great to say, “I will never publish this.” So, I’m glad that you made that choice for now. Because when we are thinking about publishing a story, all those people are on our shoulder, and then we can’t write, so it can stymie us. When you reach the fulcrum point, which is the point where you recognize that the story is now for the public, it is a different story. And there are different things to consider. So first, you’ve got to know your story. But once you do know your story, and you know, “This is what happened to me, and this is how I’ve made sense of it,” the next question you have to ask is, “How is this of service to my readers?” And at that point, you really need to understand who your readers are. And that’s where author platform can come into play. And I know people get really stressed out about author platform, and “What is this? And how do I do it? And do I have to have an Instagram or Twitter or TikTok? Or do I have to do all those things?” No, you don’t have to do any of them. But you do have to have a way to reach your readers. There are lots of ways to do that. So, you have to be really clear: who is this book for? And, you know, in the early phase of the messy middle, it’s for me right now or a younger version of me, it’s some version of me. But then, you know, when you think about that next part, it’s for someone else, and you know, you sit one person in the chair. So, if you were to think about your book, and it’s okay to say, “I’m not there yet, Lisa, hold on.” But if you do, who is your memoir for?
Stephanie [13:38]
It’s really for women of all ages, of all social strata, of all intellectual strata, who have found themselves, for one reason or another, in a relationship where they are being gaslighted. And it’s existential. Because of one thing or another. In my case, I had a history of depression. And even though I didn’t know it at the time, I had a history of guilt, thinking that I had been responsible for my father’s suicide, you know, that that was just a double whammy. Yeah. And I know, you know, I was a teacher for half of my career. And then I went back to school to become an elementary school counselor. Interesting, because I could have used one in 1961. And I didn’t have one. And I loved it. You know, I just I loved working with children in any capacity, but particularly with children who are hurting. And I happen, you know, I do have a sixth sense of compassion for people who are suffering. I just feel it, and I offer myself. I do it, you know, very naturally, and it feels like a gift, not a burden.
Lisa [15:04]
Good. You’ve got some inklings of who your audience is. It’s a little broad right now, which makes total sense because you’re in the messy middle, right? So, what I want you to do over time, not right now, yeah, figure out your story. When you hit that fulcrum point, and you’re like, “I know it’s for them,” I want you to get a little clearer about who your audience is. And you’re going to do that by engaging with other people who have been gaslit and other women. So, we’re going to say women who have been gaslit, and maybe even women of a certain age, because this is what I can tell you about writing, and it’s counterintuitive: the more specific you are about who your audience is, the broader your reach can be because you are speaking directly to a certain group. It’s true. So, someone I want you to start following online is Dr. Ramani Durvasula. She is a world-renowned expert on narcissism. You’re nodding your head; you know the book is awesome. She is going to—well, by the time this airs, she will have already been a guest on the podcast. Yeah. So really, what I want you to do is follow her work and follow her on Instagram. So, follow her on—and if you’re on social media, and she’s on that same platform, I want you to follow her because I want you to see who’s following her. Okay? I want you to look at her followers and see how old they are. What are they saying? What questions are they asking? Because your book is going to answer one of their questions. And, you know, you may find that that is going to help you narrow down and understand who needs this book, and what do they need from your story. That’s the part you must be able to do when you’re getting towards the publication phase.
So, what I would say in terms of do you publish, do you not? When you get to the fulcrum, that’s when you can decide, “Am I going to publish or not?” Your motivation has to be really clear. And you have to keep your side of the street clean, because not everybody’s going to be happy about it. It’s just the way it goes. Especially if you are bringing bad behavior to light. And you’re talking about things that people may not like. So, I hear from you already, you’re doing that work, you are trying to figure out how to do that. The big question becomes, what do you do about family members, your children in particular, who are like, “Please don’t publish this.” I’m going to offer some food for thought. And these are questions you cannot answer right now. Nobody could. But there are things to think about. And, you know, question number one is, which is more important: protecting your children’s feelings or publishing this book? And sometimes the mission is more important, and you know, your kids are going to be okay. And other times, for other people, it’s like, you know, I really need to think about that. Life is short. How long do I want to be in conflict with others? And it’s okay for you to own your truth. And there’s a lot of ways to own your truth and a lot of ways to express it. And so, you want to think about, must I publish this, share this with the public to feel seen? Or are there other ways for me to feel seen?
Stephanie [18:42]
I could, you know, I could answer that right now.
Lisa
Okay.
Stephanie
And that’s how I have proceeded. As I tell them often, they are my treasures. I never expected to have jewelry. I never expected to get married. You know, I was on this other path. I had no future. I thought the future was living day to day and every day. It was hard. Yeah, really hard. My academics were not hard. I could do that, you know, but living was hard. I just didn’t have those more typical dreams that little girls have. And so, I tell these daughters of mine that they’re my treasures because they are, and I do know life is short. So, what I’ve told myself is, again, that I can publish the memoir essays. Those are well received. I want them to read this book, but probably not until after I’m gone. We’ll repeat it if they read it, and I will know which ones of them read it, or if they don’t. I think grandchildren will probably read it because they will be very curious. So that is said, okay with me. You know, the more important thing for me really is family because mine was just, you know, so dysfunctional. We have cobbled together after a very challenging breakup of our family, shall we say. We have really managed to regroup and reconfigure in a loving way.
Lisa [20:22]
Yeah, so there’s a part of you that knows, I can publish certain things and maybe not others, right? You could take this and break it up into essays. So that’s one way to handle it. And where you’re honoring your children’s wishes, then there comes to, “Will they read it?” And because what I’m hearing in this, Stephanie, more than anything, is you want to be seen. And the reality is, is that you cannot control whether your children will read it. And it’s possible they never will, because they don’t have the capacity to read it. And maybe they’re not even your readers. Right? Maybe they’re not the people—you may want them to be your readers; of course, we all do. Right? But they may not be your reader. So how can you create a situation where you are seen, where someone is bearing witness to your experience, so that it’s not an either-or, it’s a both-and. I can respect my children and their need to perhaps not read this because they’re not ready to confront certain things, or it’s just too much for them, with your need to express yourself. So be thinking about what is the both-and. How can you do that?
Stephanie [21:36]
Well, I have a, I do have a website and a chapbook. And I do write a monthly blog post on it. Old-fashioned, you know, I’m not on Substack, you know. And I do write about certain topics, you know, I write about a variety of topics, but some, I write about something that, that, in those words has me seen. And I have different groups that I know, read my blog posts. It’s done with them I’ve sent to my daughters; I’ve sent the links they have never, ever let me know that they’ve read it. No, just no response.
Lisa [22:18]
And I think the most important thing for you is going to be to figure out how you cannot tell yourself a bad story about that. Don’t let this be a re-creation of the past. And I think it could be easy for any writer, when you have silence, it’s like I don’t matter, or, you know, you can tell yourself all kinds of stories, but figure out the story you want to tell yourself about the fact that it’s just their choice. They’re not my reader. Yeah. And that’s okay. So, there’s so much we could say about this, but I am honoring the fact that these are my summer shorts, I want to keep them a little shorter. So, I am going to ask you my lightning round questions. But first, I want to thank you. Thank you. Thank you for bringing us such a rich, rich topic. What is the best piece of writing advice you’ve received?
Stephanie [23:08]
The best piece of writing advice I received was very generous, and unexpected. And I didn’t understand it until much later. I wanted to go on a writing retreat to Mexico with somebody who knew my story and who I really respected. The return was going to be the day after my youngest daughter’s ninth birthday. I was harassed or allowed myself to be harassed into canceling. And when I called up to cancel, this woman said, Stephanie, you have to go on this retreat as much for your daughter’s sakes as for your own. And she changed the flight schedule, so that we would come back on my daughter’s birthday. I came back to an empty house, however, but it was on that retreat where I started to unpack my grief. I had never looked at it before. It was just, you know, too scary. And you know that that was the first time and when I think about it now, it really did. It really did make such a huge difference in terms of my trajectory toward healing.
Lisa [24:21]
I love that. Sometimes the writing is not just for you. You sit down to your writing desk for everyone else, including your children. So, as you work in the messy middle, how are you nurturing your resilience?
Stephanie [24:37]
Well, I’m here right now on a self-imposed writing retreat. I spend my summer by the ocean. My family has had a summer cottage for two generations and my grandparents the third generation on the south shore of Boston, and I spent extended summers here now that I’m retired, and the ocean has always been a source of both solace and joy for me. And so, I’m very lucky that I get to, you know, just absolutely recharge here.
Lisa [25:13]
Well, you and I are soul sisters on that, because I love the ocean. It is my, I mean, I wish it was my second home, but it feels like home to me every time I’m there. So, if people want to connect with you, because, writing requires community, and it’s a village, how can they make you part of their village by connecting with you?
Stephanie [25:35]
Well, they can either write to me through my email address, which is StephanieShafran@gmail.com. As I mentioned, I also have a website, StephanieShafran.com, where they can read about me, they can read my blog posts, they can contact me. Those are the two ways that I would say, I mean, Facebook, I’m on Facebook, and Instagram as well.
Lisa [25:57]
Well, if you missed any of that, it will be in the show notes. And I will make sure that I have all those handles and your email address, so I can put it in there. And I just want to thank you for being on the podcast today. And for all the ways that you are showing up for your writing. Because regardless of whether you publish or not, whether your children read it or not, you are doing the work that makes their lives better. So, thank you for doing that.
Stephanie [26:23]
Thank you, Lisa, thank you so much. I really appreciate this opportunity. And I look forward to watching this podcast, spreading the word of it and all your podcasts and newsletters. You are so generous. You offer yourself and your heart and what you have learned in life so generously. And I recognize that, and I know what that’s like, you know, in terms of having to get to that place. And I just feel very bonded with you as a result. So, I appreciate your allowing me to have this opportunity. It’s very exciting.
