Years ago Marion's shrink told her she needed to come up with a version of her childhood she could live with. She thought he said "aversion," and promptly took hold of a hideous tale of woe she particularly liked. It was thousands of dollars later that she finally sorted out the distinction. (Sloane Tanen illustration.)
I TELL STORIES. That would be Margaret’s version of our tale, the suggestion being that she writes the truth. For me, even that distinction is a story. About 30 years after riding the bus with Andy, and on the couch of a good psychiatrist, a question arose about my childhood that made me realize I was in the right hands, professionally speaking. The doctor was not one of those who wanted me to relive everything, instead wanting me to move on with some alacrity. I liked that, especially when he summed up his outlook for his clients this way:
What he apparently said was, “You must get a version of your childhood you can live with and live with it.”
But I thought he said something else altogether, and said to him, “An aversion to my childhood. Nice. Somebody pays you for this advice? My sister has an aversion to our childhood. I don’t need one too.”
“A version,” he repeated, laughing.
My sister and I live by different rules; we give different gifts, and even have different random facts we share (Margaret’s are here). Two sides of the same coin, or potato/po-tah-toe, and all that, we are not bookends. We are sisters: Different because we grew up in the same household, not in spite of that fact.
Does this make a memoir impossible? Does the sheer knowledge that someone else can readily disagree with your version diminish your tale, or make it less true?
Not a bit—and quite the opposite. None of us grows up utterly without the influence of others. The key in successfully writing about your life is to stay in the voice of how it occurred to you and how it looks from your point of view, staking out the territory of how you remember it and making no claims to this being the only possible or true version.
And then when everyone tells you that it didn’t happen that way, you can agree. It didn’t happen that way to them.
__________
Thanks to sister-friend Sloane Tanen for the chick art, top. An entire show of Sloane’s sisterly chicks appears in the TSP Galleries.
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{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
Marion, I love this post. It is absolutely all about perspective and how circumstance feel to us as individuals. I passionately resent it when my brother, or anyone for that matter, implies that I am not telling a story truthfully. I strive to be ultra-loyal to the pure truth. My feelings at the time of the past event must have just imprinted the memory differently than it did for those around me.
What an interesting post. I do find it hard when my sisters challenge or question a story about our childhood, but reading this really reinforces they might have a completely different perspective of the same events. On the flip side, when my mother decides to tell a “revisionist” story, we all roll our eyes in unity.
Hi, Keith. So lovely to have you here. Oh, such a fascinating point: that your feelings are imprinted at the time of the event. You’ve unearthed a great truth here and one that I’m going to really ponder. Thank you. While we are frequently confronted with made up memoir, as we discussed here, http://thesisterproject.com/roach/you-dont-have-to-make-it-up/ this is not that, but rather the same event, the same family, coding individuals differently. I love your take on this. Please keep visiting, and do look at the other memoir writing posts and see if any move you. http://thesisterproject.com/roach/category/by-marion/on-writing-memoir/
Hi, Jen: Yes, a different perspective on the same thing. So compelling isn’t it? So marvelous to ponder, though I do agree that your mother’s version is always worth a good all-together-now family eye roll. Ha!
Since there is such an age difference between my brothers and me (12 & 13 years older than me), their perspective is different due to the understanding they were able to bring to the events of our homelife, but the general theme between our stories is about the same.
But, we are all in agreement that our mother has selective amnesia when it comes to certain memories which have been seared into our memories, never to be forgotten even in the darkest, furthest depths of dementia.
At times, it infuriates me because I want her to acknowledge something, anything about the emotional undertow that was so present in our home. At other times, I figure she’s comfortable in her revised reality and just try to let it go.
This version/aversion tale is hilarious. I completely enjoyed it and shared it with my therapist friend who recognized the very funny truth in the telling. And the chick shrink along with the stylish office decor is as convincing as any therapist’s office, I’ve frequented.
Hi, Roadchick. Welcome back. As Jen points out (above), that revisionist thing does seem prevalent in heads of households. Do we all revise as we get older? It seems that the “She said, She said,” settles down a bit as we age, but I’m not sure that we simply don’t just agree to disagree rather than revise our versions.
Hello, Deborah. And Welcome. So glad to get confirmation on both the decor and the dichotomy of the sisterhood. And so glad to make you laugh. That, after all, is the very best of therapies. Come back often, please. We’re delighted you’re here.
This really struck a chord with me.
I tried not to get caught in the middle of brother/sister dust ups between my two children. However when the older brother would dismiss his younger sister by saying “that didn’t hurt, I didn’t hit you that hard” after he’d slugged her and she’d complained “that HURT!” I felt obliged to step in.
I reminded him this experience they shared had at least two parts (a fist and an arm). He was ever/only going to be able to be fully aware of one of those parts until and unless his sister shared her second part of the event with him.
If we can move past trying to label our versions as “right” or “the truth” and think of each memory as part of a whole, then maybe more of us will find the courage to share our stories.
Hi, Deb: “A Fist and an Arm” could be a title for a parenting memoir if we could just come up with the next phrase, as in, “A Fist and an Arm and a ..,” to include your good role, that third role–parents–in a growing-up tale. Very interesting to think of it that way, as the tripod, especially with your intelligent reminder not to label the tales. Do tell us more.
ohmyword I LOVE this…especially as a psychotherapist-in-remission (lol)..but I swear I’d have loved it even if I never picked up a DSM. Soooo witty and wise – so sister hearted and the picture is hilarious!! The fact that our outlook – our view – our WORLD – can change by changing something as tiny as one word is sooo true. And the fact that we each have different stories about the SAME event is such a great reminder! Thank you for this – for the whole sister/sister blog/site deal – wonderful!
My beloved daughter, Slightly-British Daughter (as I’ve nicknamed her), frightens me – she’s the one who pointed me over here – and she threatens to “she said/she said” some of my writing – oh nooooooooooooo!
Hey there, Square-Peg Karen. So glad to see you on this part of the site, having met you over here. So glad you like our differing ways of looking at the world. Ah, I’m not sure if the insanity we specialize in at TSP is yet listed in the DSM, but there’s always room to hope. Please keep visiting us, and thank your Slightly-British Daughter for the into. We’re deeply grateful.
Oh Marion, I wasn’t suggesting that TSP belongs in the Diagnostic Manual..lol, I was just saying I’d have loved your post even if I had never been a therapist. But hey, if TSP winds up in the book – well, that’s the kind of insanity I want some more of!!
Oh, we’re deranged enough most days to at least deserve a small footnote, if only for our bra rants, doncha think?
firstly i love your blog
secondly – i have loved reading this aversion a version story…
i have recently decided i need to stop trying to justify my point of view of my childhood/fraught relationship with my mother because it is how it is for me and all i am doing by trying to convince others is staying stuck ina black smelly place….
my version is my version – it happened to me that way but i don’t need anyone else to vindicate that for me… my truth alone!
thankyou
Hi, Jane. And welcome to the alternating reality that is She Said/She Said, here on TSP. We’re glad to have you here, and delighted that you love the blog. It was quite a breakthrough for us when we realized that we are different because we grew up in the same household, not in spite of it. Fascinating reality, isn’t it? Yes: Your version is indeed your version. And hard won, no doubt. Stay tuned for lots more, please.
I wrote a story about my perfect sister. She took care of me at a time I really needed caring for. She’s 15 months younger. She was generous and loving and caring. My mother wasn’t. I wanted to write about how lovely she was in my life. I showed it to a couple of friends and they loved it and encouraged me to send it to her. Which I did. Finally, after several weeks I called her to see if she’d gotten it. “Yes” she said. Period. When I asked what she thought of it, she said it made her so sad because my life was such a misery and hers was so happy. She has not mentioned the story again. And neither have I. It’s a dangerous thing to expose our stories to the protagonist.
She acted as though she was angry with me. oh, dear! It wasnt supposed to do that!
That’s our different lives with the same parents and brothers, same house, same dog and cats, but, oh what a distance!
Hello, Nina. We are so glad to read you here. Well,you certainly have experienced the She Said/She Said of life, haven’t you? It is, indeed, a dangerous thing to expose our stories to the protagonist. What a wonderful phrase, and how weighty. But here’s the extension of it: Never let the response stop the writing. Nope. Even when we get swatted down by our very siblings, we write. We write on. That’s what writers do. So write on, Nina.