Memoir Writing

The Birth Of A Memoir

Marilea C. RabasaLeave a comment

I’m the mother of a heroin addict, still in active addiction, and I want to share how I’ve learned to live with a parent’s worst nightmare. My book’s first draft started out as an account of my daughter’s addiction and all the horrors, her loss of self, her loss of soul, that accompany it. But as I got to the end, I realized that her story really began with me, and my story began with my father, etc. It became a story of the generational nature of addiction. And so I rewrote it with an Introduction, where I share my childhood and Angie’s with the reader so that you will know us; you get to know Angie before she was corrupted by addiction and, in my case, perhaps understand why I behaved as I did throughout Angie’s addiction. And as I paralleled her roller coaster ride with my own recovery, it ceased to be a simple story about drug addiction and took on the shape of a memoir, as I show how this tragic life event has changed and transformed me.

I begin with a question in the Prologue:

“Where might my daughter be now if fate, or genes, had been kinder to her? Now, several years into her illness, I am coming to terms with the terrible legacy that began generations ago in my own family and which I have unwittingly passed on to my daughter. All these years I’ve diligently searched for answers, clarity, and solace in the face of terrible pain. Like a gift from the universe, it has come to me slowly, and it is with me now. But it’s been a hard won victory.”

Angie’s illness was the catalyst, as I say at the end of the book “that catapulted me into a cave of my own discoveries…” I found myself at the end of this tunnel, “and I would always—still— reckon with the survivor guilt that has challenged my right to be happy while my daughter still struggles with addiction.”

The Gifts Of Another Season

Marilea C. RabasaLeave a comment

I’m very happy to be a Finalist this year in the New Mexico/Arizona Book Awards for Nonfiction. http://nmbookcoop.com/2015-Finalists-List.doc Woot-Woot!

 

A Memoir of Recovery

I am so happy to be part of the growing recovery movement in addiction. My story is one of many stories out there testifying to the power of spiritual transformation. As our numbers grow, so does our strength. Blessings to all this Thanksgiving and always!

Stirring The Pot

Marilea C. RabasaLeave a comment

memoir-witches

I love this cartoon from the New Yorker. But it’s not why I published my memoir. I suppose some authors put their stories out there for less than altruistic purposes. My motive was to heal from the disease that has crippled my family and me for generations. Many people still think of addiction as a choice or moral failing. So where I fully expect compassion from most people, I still feel judgment from some of those who have never walked in my shoes. And those are the people who will look at this cartoon and might say, “Hell, yes, she’s plotting to wipe out those people who nearly ruined her life!”

No, I’m not. “Those” people are my people, and we’ve all been swirling around in the maelstrom of addiction for a long time. Addiction is emerging from the shadows and people are talking openly about it. The shame and stigma are starting to evaporate, and people are viewing addicts in a new light, deserving of as much compassion as any other sick person.

And those witches stirring their cauldron, planning to poison the evildoers who wronged them? They’ll be out of a job.

A Journey Of Transformation

Marilea C. RabasaLeave a comment

A mother wrote me recently: “Your memoir has released me from my shame. Reading your recovery story has shown me how, in spite of everything bad that’s happening now, I can get on with my life and learn to be whole and happy again. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

A Memoir of Recovery

 

My story takes you through my recovery from addiction and the effects of living with it. But it didn’t start out that way. I began it several years ago solely as a story about my daughter’s drug addiction. And as I got deeper into the writing of it I realized that there was much more of a story to tell, and that that story began with me in my childhood.

And so I began the excavation process, the unfolding of my life, and laid myself out before the reader in the Introduction. Angie didn’t become an addict in a vacuum. She is the latest in at least four generations of troubled souls. So I allow you, the reader, to get to know me long before my daughter was hijacked by this cruel disease. It adds another dimension to my very personal story, and allows you to consider that addiction is often a generational illness. And you will see why it is, indeed, “A Mother’s Story.”

Ironically it was my daughter Angie whose disease brought me to a place of wellness and peace in my life. All the ugliness of behavior and spirit that often goes with unbridled addiction is documented in the book, as addiction is a monster that takes few prisoners. Yet Angie was a beautiful young woman with her whole life ahead of her before addiction seduced her. Her tapestry described in the book reminds us that beauty is often born out of loss.

This is a story about my recovery in the face of all this heartbreak. How I’ve been able to accomplish this is a testimony to the power of spiritual transformation. And so, paralleling the roller coaster ride of her illness, I share with the reader throughout the book my evolving recovery and my journey toward serenity.

This journey has freed my children from the same oppression that held me hostage growing up. Many people who have suffered through the darkness of addiction are consumed by despair. But as I continue to grow and change, my loved ones are the beneficiaries. Perhaps some elements of my story will resonate with you as well.

 

My Life As Pentimento

Marilea C. RabasaLeave a comment

image

For many of us, writing is a journey of self-discovery, full of delights and surprises. I never set out to write a memoir. I had no plan or outline, no clear beginning and an unknown conclusion. It just became one along the way.

Seven years ago, I had just discovered that my daughter was a heroin addict. So in my grief and frustration I found relief by writing about it. And then I stopped.  I moved to New Mexico where I met a writer who would become my teacher and coach. Looking over what I had started writing she encouraged me to turn it into something. So I did: I gave her a 500+ page rant, something Chris Offut would call “the delirium of the first draft!” Well, I thought I was done. I was thinking of section titles and started writing notes to myself in the margins: things like “Oh, by the way, I had a miserable childhood;” and “Hush, hush, don’t tell anyone, but I’m an addict, too.” And I realized in confronting these truths about myself that this was my story. Angie and her drug addiction was the catalyst, certainly, that got me writing. But the story began with me.

So I went back and wrote an introduction, a window into my childhood and young adulthood as Angie’s mother. I wanted you, the reader, to know me. And I felt it was important for you to know my daughter as well. She was a beautiful, gifted, full-of-promise child and young woman—before this cruel disease corrupted her.

The rest of the book started out as the roller coaster ride of drug addiction—thirteen years, from 2001 until now—all the highs and the lows, the rehabs and the relapses, the joys and the sorrows, everything that accompanies unbridled drug addiction. That was the original plotline. But I added another one along the way: that of my evolving recovery from all this heartache. These two plotlines parallel each other, and they intersect a lot in the beginning of Angie’s illness. But at some point in the story they go in separate directions.

And it’s in sharing the change and transformation in me as a result of this most tragic event in any parent’s life that this angry narrative about drug addiction takes the shape of a memoir. I weave the voice of recovery into every chapter, from beginning to end, as I reflect back on events in my life—through a different lens.

At the beginning of Pentimento, Lillian Hellman’s wonderful collection of remembrances that she wrote back in 1973, she points out how artists sometimes paint over what they had painted before. They changed their minds; they “repented.” So too in literature, she adds, “the old conception, replaced by a later choice, is a way of seeing…and then seeing again.”

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1940769140/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1940769140&linkCode=as2&tag=merchear-20

Why I Write

Marilea C. RabasaLeave a comment

Writing, for me, is self-discovery. At times I feel confused or I want answers, and when I write about it, the mud often sinks to the bottom and I can see things more clearly. It’s a clarification process. Often I start a piece, and by the time I’ve finished it, I’ve answered some questions. It’s sort of like, as Lillian Hellman said as she described the term “pentimento,” my “old conception, replaced by a later choice, is a way of seeing, and then seeing again.” “Pentimento”—a term in art where sometimes, the artist changing his mind, paints over what he had previously put on the canvas. Thus, he repented.  Many times I’ve written stories that ended up nowhere I had intended. I thought I wanted to write about one thing, but ended up writing about something else.  It’s a real excavation process, as we mine our depths often coming out so much richer in self-knowledge than we were in the beginning.

The Making of a Memoir

Marilea C. RabasaLeave a comment

                                   A Journey of Transformation 

This is a memoir of my recovery from addiction and the effects of living with it. But it didn’t start out that way. I began it several years ago solely as a story about my daughter’s drug addiction. And as I got deeper into the writing of it I realized that there was much more of a story to tell, and that that story began with me in my childhood.

And so I began the excavation process, the unfolding of my life, and laid myself out before the reader in the Introduction. Angie didn’t become an addict in a vacuum. She is the latest in at least four generations of troubled souls. So I allow you, the reader, to get to know me long before my daughter was hijacked by this cruel disease.  It adds another dimension to my very personal story, and allows you to consider that addiction is often a generational illness. And you will see why it is, indeed, “A Mother’s Story.”

Ironically it was my daughter Angie whose disease brought me to a place of wellness and peace in my life. All the ugliness of behavior and spirit that often goes with unbridled addiction is documented in the book, as addiction is a monster that takes few prisoners. Yet Angie was a beautiful young woman with her whole life ahead of her before addiction seduced her. Her tapestry described in the book reminds us that beauty is often born out of loss.

This is a story about my recovery in the face of all this heartbreak.  How I’ve been able to accomplish this is a testimony to the power of spiritual transformation. And so, paralleling the roller coaster ride of her illness, I share with the reader throughout the book my evolving recovery and my journey toward serenity.

This journey has freed my children from the same oppression that held me hostage growing up. Many people who have suffered through the darkness of addiction are consumed by despair. But as I continue to grow and change, my loved ones are the beneficiaries. Perhaps some elements of my story will resonate with you as well.

Memoir-of-Recovery