Permission to Tell Your Story...and why it's important

I’m in my era of nerding out on craft writing books. The books feel like imaginary cheerleaders on the sidelines of my writing life.

As I read Elissa Altman’s book, Permission: The New Memoirist and The Courage to Create, I was surprised by the parallels I saw to the psychotherapy life. I thought I was reading a craft book but instead, page after page, I found striking similarities. Let’s dive in and let me explain…

Altman shares her experience of a specific memoir she wrote and being disowned from her family as a result of telling the story. She details the anger and grief she felt. She explains how she shared a non-secret secret, something that everyone in the family knew but had a negative reaction when it was shared with the world.

You may ask - what is a non-secret secret? Altman says “It is a story that everyone knows and everyone hides.” She explains that her father “made me the keeper of the story, even when I was in singe digits.”

When clients meet with me, they are intent to talk about their lives, hoping for some relief. We venture into the forbidden territory of secrets. Secrets from early childhood experiences and unforeseen traumas. The client who was eager to feel better, to grow and heal, is now concerned with telling the truth of their story. Reluctant to speak honestly about what happened to them and painting their family in a negative light. Their own healing takes a back seat.

They wrestle with the fear - “Are they allowed to tell the secrets? Even the non-secret secrets?”They worry that the walls have ears.

Isn’t that how therapy is? We share our non-secret secrets when we sit on the couch. In both memoir writing and psychotherapy, we expose our lives and we may be unprepared for the consequences, good or bad.

“Who owns this thing that happened to me, that I must write about?” Or speak about in therapy?

Altman uses permission and extends it to us to be honest and tell our story. Even if it costs us connection. The story is ours to tell and there is healing in the telling. Therapy, like writing, changes us. There may be some unintended fallout.

“Telling the truth where false perfection once existed - casting shade and doubt on it - results in humanity, empathy, and compassion. And sometimes, trouble.”

I have been in therapy for a shockingly long time. I have grown accustomed to sharing my story and shining a light on my experiences. However, when I first began writing memoir several years ago, my thoughts were “What will people think?” Specifically people who know me.

What would my family think if they read it?  If I tell of my experience growing up and the abuse and neglect, even though it is my story and true to me, I may offend or hurt the reader. Suddenly I was more concerned with the “other people” in my life than my own experience of truth-telling.

These are the same fears that clients have in therapy. What if my mother, father, sister knows I’m coming to therapy? What will they think? Will they make it about themselves, assuming that I’m talking about them? What if they take it personally? Will I have to take care of their feelings instead of my own?

Underneath this concern is really the fear of annihilation, of being disowned, abandoned, cut off.

Altman says, “…handled with care, light and truth move creatives to a place of compassion, humility, self-knowledge, and transcendence.” The same is true for therapy clients. In the safety of the therapeutic room, our stories will be handled with care. As we explore more of who we are and where we came from, the light and truth will bring healing through validation, empathy and insight. The kind that allows us to make change and to alter the patterns we may be stuck in.

Jeanette Wilkerson wrote in Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal, “I needed words because unhappy families are conspiracies of silence. The one who breaks the silence is never forgiven. He or she has to learn to forgive him or herself.”

We run the risk of being rejected by our family when we speak the truth. However, the client who is fearful of being rejected by family never really had true connection with them to begin with. The relationship was contingent on silence and not speaking the truth.

“The beating heart of silence is shame, and shame is the plasma that feeds the withholding of permission.”

We need permission to speak, to tell the truth, to be honest.

Our families hold up mirrors that reflect who we are. All relationships do this. We come to know who we are by seeing our reflection. How they respond to us. How they treat us. What they say about us. How they characterize us.

Often who we have been told that we are, especially when it comes from our families, is not an accurate representation of who we really are.

The power of therapy (and of writing) is that we get to change how the story ends. We get to change the story of who we have been told that we are. We get to change the patterns. Maybe we take a character’s power away. Maybe we write a character out of the sequel.

When I was a child, the family joke told was “You’re so sensitive.” I heard this repeatedly and it was not funny to me. It felt like a deep criticism. I grew up believing that I was too sensitive. That there was something wrong with me. That I was flawed. It was a source of shame for me. It was not until I went to therapy for the first time that I learned that I was not too sensitive. That I was a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) and that my sensitivity wasn’t my fault. It was part of my genetic makeup. Something I had no control over. Therapy helped me embrace my sensitivity. Respect it. Nurture it. Protect it.

What are the stories you’ve been told about yourself that need reframing? That need to be re-worked? What have you been told about yourself that was a criticism that actually is a strength?

Whether you are writing memoir or are on the therapy couch, you may not be used to hearing the words escape your mouth of what happened to you, what you struggle with, the pain you’ve experienced, the questions you have about yourself and life. This is where the alchemy is, where our pain and our personal narratives can be turned into our healing and our future.

Last bits of wisdom from Altman:

1. “Storytelling is what humans do” - we need stories and we need to make stories. We are hard-wired for it.
2. Storytelling and meaning-making are our birthright.
3. Shame keeps us silenced. The only way through is to speak truth, expose it to the light, allow it to breathe, treat it with kindness.
4. Moments of quiet and stillness are necessary to the writing life and the therapeutic life. We don’t have to fear the quiet.
5. We must be intentional and carve out time for both writing and therapy.
6. We risk being understood when we tell our stories but that is a risk we can cope with.
7. Reflecting on the page, keeping a notebook (even many notebooks) is helpful. Whether your notebook is a process journal for therapy, a personal anthology you’re keeping, or morning pages.
8. We need to be generous with ourselves, not stingy.

You may do this, I tell you, it is permitted. Begin again the story of your life. -Jane Hirshfield

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