WHY DO I DO IT?
Last week, I asked why you might have turned to telling stories instead of organizing your world in other ways. Susanne Dunlap wrote about the desire to create an alternate, more beautiful and hopeful existence, and CJ wrote about the exhilaration of sharing exploration of the world. Sonsyrea found inspiration and comfort in songs she heard in church and in songs, and works to inspire and comfort others. (Still waiting to hear from you, Susan Messer!)
I have been hesitant to share what I think are the seeds of my own storytelling tendencies, but I think they may be of interest. The fact is, I was an habitual liar as a child.
I came by it honestly. For different reasons, my parents exhibited a disregard for facts that is, in retrospect, shocking.
I believe that my father told stories to entertain himself, without, perhaps, considering their effect on vulnerable others (me). He had a long scar under his chin that he told me—and I believed for years—was from “when my head was cut off in the war.” When asked about his education, he would burst into what he insisted was the anthem of “New York Reform School.” He told me “true” stories of his childhood that included a talking cat and flying crockery, and even into my late teens, when I was too old to buy the other stories (though I never did learn the truth about that scar) he convinced me that Julius Erving was called “Dr. J” because he was a medical doctor who had been discovered on a recreational basketball court.
My mother wasn’t that imaginative, but she was intensely concerned with what other people thought. We had the kind of household that presented as normal and loving because anything dark was swept into the closets. My brother and I were punished for noticing and commenting on family members’ drunkenness or lecherous tendencies. She coached me to hide my intelligence, and especially my aggressive curiosity, because brains were considered unattractive in a girl. She told social lies all the time, and when I asked her about these, she would slap me.
As a result, I think, my sense of reality was severely compromised. What actually happened seemed just another, often less interesting, version. I entertained my friends with stories of my adventures, few of which had really taken place. I made up reasons why my homework was unfinished, or for that bruise on my arm or my inability to stay awake in class, that were plausible and put my family and me in a more attractive light than the truth would have.
At a certain point I realized that this was not the way most people lived, and that I wanted to do better. I received guidance from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which I read in the fourth grade. The heroine, Francie, tells a story to win a doll she covets. Her teacher, who sees through the lie, encourages her to channel her tendency to embroider the truth into writing stories. I decided to try it.
I didn’t change all at once, but that was the beginning of a purposeful separation between fantasy and reality. I started writing, and after a while I added acting in school plays. These activities allowed me to inhabit other, possibly more interesting or attractive, lives, and made the one I was actually living more bearable. Eventually, when I left home and started living a life I actually enjoyed, writing and acting became recreational rather than life-supporting.
There’s more, of course, which I hope to write about at another time. There is always more, which can make for a messy narrative. Fortunately, even in nonfiction, the author has the option to shape the story in the way that makes the most esthetic sense.
Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D.,is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself,she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. She is the author of Getting Unstuck without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity(Seal, 2007). Her Career Coach column appears every Monday on Inside Higher Ed's Mama, Ph.D. blog, and she is a regular monthly panelist on Litopia After Dark. Send your questions to her at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.
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