Gosh, I have been thinking through this more than ever. I’m in the middle of a nightmare season that I would not wish upon anyone. I tend to narrate life in real time, and writing has always been my way to flush that out. I love that point that you made about real life people in flesh knowing you in these times. That I have, and I keep the most intimate details for a small group of people that love me. But I will say, I have thought a lot more about how much to share. Always hard when it’s not all your story. As always, very good food for thought.
I'm so grateful I found you through your book. Your message in this post is gracious truth telling. As writers, we straddle the line between vulnerability and discerning what to share, with whom to share, and why are we sharing it? Thank you for challenging us all to think.
There’s a lot of insight to think about here. Do you have thoughts on how these concepts—writing from pain, using pain to get interaction— have relevance to fiction? I know that they do—certainly I write from my own struggles, certainly I look for my pain to be validated by having value for others— but I’m just wondering what wisdom you or other commenters have about it.
I'm only one episode into Apple Cider Vinegar but nobody I know IRL is watching soooo you're about to get my thoughts 😂 I LOVE it and can't wait to watch more, and the two scenes in the first episode featuring cancer diagnoses are obviously heartbreaking...but the scene that made me actually tear up was the baby shower. Just the absolute visceral pain. The deep, unbearable feeling of abandonment that was so bad she had to literally go to the emergency room--that is pain, from trauma, on a level that so few of us are able to understand, and it's absolutely just as bad as physical pain. (Again, I'm one episode in so if she turns into even more of a raging sociopath maybe I'll eat my words but I just couldn't stop thinking about that scene.)
That scene gutted me. I felt a lot of tenderness toward her in the portrayal of her, and even more so as i watched the 60 Minutes interview. I think she was a young kid who messed up and made a lot of money for it.
From the 50 or so passages in the Bible—Old Testament and New—that word, “suffering,” (NIV), (every single one) is a very sobering usage. When those who love God go through suffering, they are precious to Him. If it a consequence of sin, He takes it seriously with a divine respect that can be seen as sadness or as a sign of a justice that had to happen. There are instances where suffering is what He imposes as punishment. Jesus suffered for us unto our salvation, so we know God takes suffering seriously. People across the globe suffer unspeakable things. So we should see real suffering with a sense of reverence. I know you do. You have been very personal and careful with that subject. You set a good example others should follow.
Really grateful for these words, Lore. I’ve been convicted in the past about platforming my pain in certain seasons, and have changed how I engage publicly around my own suffering, grief, etc, as a result. It’s a continual work of discernment for those of us who write publicly. May we steward our words wisely. 🙏🏼
I will never say we shouldn't write about our pain, but I think it takes a lot of work to not make it performative these days. It's strange we even have to talk about it these days. Twenty years ago I'm not sure this would have been a discussion...
This post is very timely for me -- thank you. When a former friend wrote a memoir in which she analyzed our friendship and its breakdown, I was very deeply hurt. She wrote so many things about what (she assumed) I thought and felt, such as that I was overwhelmed and oppressed by what she told me about her painful past -- which I never was. I wrote a little bit about this in my own most recent post, and this was my attempt to reconcile things: "For a long time, it hurt deeply to feel so unseen and misrepresented, especially publicly. How could she get it — get me — so wrong? Her descriptions seemed drastically at odds with what we were to each other. But over time, the sting has eased a little. The way I think of it now is that she had a collection of photos of me, and she chose the ones that were most useful to her in telling the story she wanted to tell about herself." Her purpose was to construct her own story, and my role had to be adjusted somewhat to suit her purposes. Coming to this conclusion didn't fix everything for me, but it has eased the sting a bit.
So I am always very interested in any discussions of writing about "true" things in our own and others' lives and about how and when (and if) to process publicly. (By the way, in The Understory you mention Anne Lamott's famous line "if people wanted you to write warmly about them they should have behaved better" -- that never sat well with me because there are actually far worse things than not being written "warmly" about.) Thanks again for this post.
Oh yes, that is really helpful -- love this: "When we experience brokenness in our lives, because we are thinking, feeling, and ordering beings, we reorient stories so they don’t hurt us as bad. We tell a better story because we’re not ready to deal with the pain of the reality. Or we tell a worse story because the pain is too compounded in us to see a situation as it truly is." Thanks.
I'm so sorry that happened to you. It's hard to get memoir "right" especially because our stories bang up so hard against the very different and distinct stories other people are living. I love Marion Roach Smith's quote, "I have told the truth, but not the whole truth. To tell the whole truth is a fool's errand." I have it written on a little card I keep on my desk at all times to remind myself that the story I'm telling is never the whole truth AND the stories others believe or tell about me are never the whole truth. We're not God =)
This is really good the Lore. When I was on Facebook, I grew a platform of many followers from my pain. I platformed my pain because I saw that the more touching I could make a post, the more poignant,the more readable— I could get likes and follows.
When I came onto Substack, I wanted to get out of platforming my pain, and at the same time, I was going through significant life stuff. So I had to really think about what I wanted to share and how much I wanted to share and how to balance all of that. And I did write a lot about stuff I was struggling with, but what changed was my heart. What changed was the way I wrote. Not to perform for my audience, but to simply tell people, this is what I’ve been going through and this is what is helping me and this is what I’ve discovered.
And you’re right finding a balance in your work and writing about other things is good too. I don’t know if I’ve got that balance to where I want it to be, but I am mindful of it. And that is what has made the difference between my writing on Substack and my writing on Facebook. 🧡
I love your humility, Mel. It's so good when we see a pattern that, though it may have produced some good fruit somewhere, didn't produce on the whole good fruit. It takes humility to start again differently =) I'm glad you're here.
Amen to all of this, and thank you for saying it, Sayable! “Recognize the real heroes among the sick, abused, and marginalized are often not the ones talking about it at all publicly, not monetizing it, not offering pithy phrases as antidotes for it, or building whole businesses out of it. All their energy is going to healing in healthy ways.” This line holds such truth.
Lore, you are such a great writer! I like the idea of inviting our real community into our pain. I’ve had times when all I wanted was a dopamine hit from internet peeps but that hit is soooo short lived. Whereas with our real community there’s follow up and follow through, that’s hard to get online. Thanks for sharing with us❤️.
Agreed! That's why whenever someone says, "I believe what's true" or "I believe the absolute truth," I'm like, well, what do you mean by that? Because even our perception of God, who is truth, is varied because of the ways we see God and the stories we've lived up until this point. There is truth, for sure, I believe that, I just don't believe any of us living beings know it for sure =)
Thank you for writing this. It's sobering and necessary.
Gosh, I have been thinking through this more than ever. I’m in the middle of a nightmare season that I would not wish upon anyone. I tend to narrate life in real time, and writing has always been my way to flush that out. I love that point that you made about real life people in flesh knowing you in these times. That I have, and I keep the most intimate details for a small group of people that love me. But I will say, I have thought a lot more about how much to share. Always hard when it’s not all your story. As always, very good food for thought.
I'm so grateful I found you through your book. Your message in this post is gracious truth telling. As writers, we straddle the line between vulnerability and discerning what to share, with whom to share, and why are we sharing it? Thank you for challenging us all to think.
There’s a lot of insight to think about here. Do you have thoughts on how these concepts—writing from pain, using pain to get interaction— have relevance to fiction? I know that they do—certainly I write from my own struggles, certainly I look for my pain to be validated by having value for others— but I’m just wondering what wisdom you or other commenters have about it.
I'm only one episode into Apple Cider Vinegar but nobody I know IRL is watching soooo you're about to get my thoughts 😂 I LOVE it and can't wait to watch more, and the two scenes in the first episode featuring cancer diagnoses are obviously heartbreaking...but the scene that made me actually tear up was the baby shower. Just the absolute visceral pain. The deep, unbearable feeling of abandonment that was so bad she had to literally go to the emergency room--that is pain, from trauma, on a level that so few of us are able to understand, and it's absolutely just as bad as physical pain. (Again, I'm one episode in so if she turns into even more of a raging sociopath maybe I'll eat my words but I just couldn't stop thinking about that scene.)
That scene gutted me. I felt a lot of tenderness toward her in the portrayal of her, and even more so as i watched the 60 Minutes interview. I think she was a young kid who messed up and made a lot of money for it.
From the 50 or so passages in the Bible—Old Testament and New—that word, “suffering,” (NIV), (every single one) is a very sobering usage. When those who love God go through suffering, they are precious to Him. If it a consequence of sin, He takes it seriously with a divine respect that can be seen as sadness or as a sign of a justice that had to happen. There are instances where suffering is what He imposes as punishment. Jesus suffered for us unto our salvation, so we know God takes suffering seriously. People across the globe suffer unspeakable things. So we should see real suffering with a sense of reverence. I know you do. You have been very personal and careful with that subject. You set a good example others should follow.
Bearing witness to someone's real suffering is a strange kind of honor, but an honor nonetheless.
Really grateful for these words, Lore. I’ve been convicted in the past about platforming my pain in certain seasons, and have changed how I engage publicly around my own suffering, grief, etc, as a result. It’s a continual work of discernment for those of us who write publicly. May we steward our words wisely. 🙏🏼
I will never say we shouldn't write about our pain, but I think it takes a lot of work to not make it performative these days. It's strange we even have to talk about it these days. Twenty years ago I'm not sure this would have been a discussion...
I agree wholeheartedly.
This post is very timely for me -- thank you. When a former friend wrote a memoir in which she analyzed our friendship and its breakdown, I was very deeply hurt. She wrote so many things about what (she assumed) I thought and felt, such as that I was overwhelmed and oppressed by what she told me about her painful past -- which I never was. I wrote a little bit about this in my own most recent post, and this was my attempt to reconcile things: "For a long time, it hurt deeply to feel so unseen and misrepresented, especially publicly. How could she get it — get me — so wrong? Her descriptions seemed drastically at odds with what we were to each other. But over time, the sting has eased a little. The way I think of it now is that she had a collection of photos of me, and she chose the ones that were most useful to her in telling the story she wanted to tell about herself." Her purpose was to construct her own story, and my role had to be adjusted somewhat to suit her purposes. Coming to this conclusion didn't fix everything for me, but it has eased the sting a bit.
So I am always very interested in any discussions of writing about "true" things in our own and others' lives and about how and when (and if) to process publicly. (By the way, in The Understory you mention Anne Lamott's famous line "if people wanted you to write warmly about them they should have behaved better" -- that never sat well with me because there are actually far worse things than not being written "warmly" about.) Thanks again for this post.
Also, I wrote about this a bit more in this post: https://lorewilbert.com/p/the-world-as-best-as-i-can-remember?utm_source=publication-search
Oh yes, that is really helpful -- love this: "When we experience brokenness in our lives, because we are thinking, feeling, and ordering beings, we reorient stories so they don’t hurt us as bad. We tell a better story because we’re not ready to deal with the pain of the reality. Or we tell a worse story because the pain is too compounded in us to see a situation as it truly is." Thanks.
I'm so sorry that happened to you. It's hard to get memoir "right" especially because our stories bang up so hard against the very different and distinct stories other people are living. I love Marion Roach Smith's quote, "I have told the truth, but not the whole truth. To tell the whole truth is a fool's errand." I have it written on a little card I keep on my desk at all times to remind myself that the story I'm telling is never the whole truth AND the stories others believe or tell about me are never the whole truth. We're not God =)
This is really good the Lore. When I was on Facebook, I grew a platform of many followers from my pain. I platformed my pain because I saw that the more touching I could make a post, the more poignant,the more readable— I could get likes and follows.
When I came onto Substack, I wanted to get out of platforming my pain, and at the same time, I was going through significant life stuff. So I had to really think about what I wanted to share and how much I wanted to share and how to balance all of that. And I did write a lot about stuff I was struggling with, but what changed was my heart. What changed was the way I wrote. Not to perform for my audience, but to simply tell people, this is what I’ve been going through and this is what is helping me and this is what I’ve discovered.
And you’re right finding a balance in your work and writing about other things is good too. I don’t know if I’ve got that balance to where I want it to be, but I am mindful of it. And that is what has made the difference between my writing on Substack and my writing on Facebook. 🧡
I love your humility, Mel. It's so good when we see a pattern that, though it may have produced some good fruit somewhere, didn't produce on the whole good fruit. It takes humility to start again differently =) I'm glad you're here.
Amen to all of this, and thank you for saying it, Sayable! “Recognize the real heroes among the sick, abused, and marginalized are often not the ones talking about it at all publicly, not monetizing it, not offering pithy phrases as antidotes for it, or building whole businesses out of it. All their energy is going to healing in healthy ways.” This line holds such truth.
The show did a good job of showing how very sick the ones who really had cancer were, and how all their energy went into healing.
I’m going to check this show out. Thanks for all the resources you gave too, and the resource on lying is especially interesting and valuable.
Yes and amen, Lore.
You model this well, friend =)
Lore, you are such a great writer! I like the idea of inviting our real community into our pain. I’ve had times when all I wanted was a dopamine hit from internet peeps but that hit is soooo short lived. Whereas with our real community there’s follow up and follow through, that’s hard to get online. Thanks for sharing with us❤️.
Thank you. The hit is so short lived, yes. Sometimes there's lasting impact from it, in good ways, but predominantly, it's short lived.
Incredibly on point, Lore, as always. Thank you for the vulnerability and, also, for the precious advice.
"If the platform is pain and dopamine is the medicine, getting offline is the cure." Never heard it better said👌🏻👌🏻
I hope it helps =)
Agreed! That's why whenever someone says, "I believe what's true" or "I believe the absolute truth," I'm like, well, what do you mean by that? Because even our perception of God, who is truth, is varied because of the ways we see God and the stories we've lived up until this point. There is truth, for sure, I believe that, I just don't believe any of us living beings know it for sure =)