Category Archives: Judaism

Trauma Passed Through Generations Shared by Writing a Memoir

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by Jerry Waxler

Author of Memoir Revolution: Write Your Story, Change the World and How to Become a Heroic Writer

Linda Appleman Shapiro’s memoir, She’s Not Herself is about a girl whose mother had a serious mental illness. The memoir itself raised many intriguing ideas about the children of trauma survivors, about the secrets parents keep, and about how children manage to find their way despite grave difficulties. In addition to the events that took place inside the book, I am intrigued by how the author continued to develop as an adult. How did she integrate all the emotional upheaval that took place in her childhood, and turn it into a memoir? In this interview, I ask Linda Appleman Shapiro questions that might help aspiring memoir writers, who are looking back toward memories and forward toward turning memories into a story.

Jerry Waxler: As a reader, I cared deeply for the little girl who had to grow up navigating among such complex psychological pressures. Clearly these were traumatic trainings and you had to carry the burden of these memories into your adult years.

Linda Appleman Shapiro: When you say that I had to carry the burden of my early memories into my adult years, I’d have to add that I think it’s much more complicated than that. To carry a burden one has to be aware of the burden. If one succeeds in hiding the truth from himself/herself, the memories remain locked away until one trigger or another sets them loose.

In my case: I knew that my mother became sick several times each year. At such times, I heard my father refer to doctors giving her something he referred to as “shock treatments.”  At other times, when she was taken to the hospital, I was left alone with my father or shipped off to one aunt or another. I received no explanation other than “Your mother, she’s not herself today.”

Just as I was entering adolescence and the woman in me began to identify with my mother that fear for myself had begun to set in. I became conscious of living in a daily state of hyper vigilance and beyond that I was also beginning to lose my footing. Emotional swings that take place in every normal adolescent’s life soon became exaggerated nightmares in mine.

Jerry: You’ve done an incredible job in the memoir, sharing that whole journey with your readers. Now, as a memoir writer, you have clearly been on a very different journey. Memoir writers must reach back into their memories and turn them into a story.

It must have been painful to go back and look at those times, with so much confusion, suffering, and secrets. How did you face all of that when you were looking back?

Linda: I think what saved me from myself as I started to sort out disturbing memories occurred years before writing this memoir. It came from the therapy I sought in my early life when I was becoming more and more aware that the role I played in our family was interfering with my adult relationships, especially with my first love experience. I write about that in detail in the book.

I received invaluable tools from skilled professionals and for 30+ years have been a behavioral psychotherapist/addictions counselor. Based on this background, I wanted to make sense of the effects of multigenerational traumas, providing readers with hope from whatever wisdom I have as someone who has examined human vulnerability in its many disguises and has moved through and beyond trauma.

Jerry: Say more about the process of actually writing it. How long did it take? Did you love writing it or dread it?

Linda: The entire process was one of about twenty years while working full-time as a psychotherapist, living life within our family, with our daughters, in our community, and later with our grandchildren.

Throughout, I remained committed and determined to peel away the onion that was my life. There was never a time that I set writing aside. In fact, once I began, the writing seemed to write itself. As one memory emerged, others came forth . . . and there were many times when a memory was so horrific that I questioned if what I believed I was remembering actually did occur. But that didn’t stop me from writing or examining and exposing all that did happen. As one witness to human vulnerability and human strength, the process of writing it all was not cathartic. It was grueling because I forced myself to remain as authentic as possible.

By creating scenes and dialogue between my parents and writing about each of the memories they shared with me about life in war-torn Russia before emigrating to America, I got to know them on a far deeper level than I ever did while they were alive. As characters in my memoir, I respected and loved them more with each page that I wrote.

Of course, I also learned a great deal more about myself. The patterns of my life that popped off certain pages (revealing an ever present need to rescue a person or a moment, even at my own expense) caused me to feel the same concerns for that little girl who was the me that you felt concerned about.

Jerry: Now that your memoir has been published you have come a very long way, from a little girl on Brighton Beach, through your young adulthood, trying to sort out these disturbing memories, to an older adult who has crafted the story of that little girl and shared it with the world. Congratulations! What can you share about the feeling of having written a memoir that is now being read by strangers. Was it satisfying? Healing? Invigorating? Did you miss it once it was over?

With regard to how I feel about strangers reading my memoir, I have a one word response: HONORED. Actually, I believe that story telling is a part of my genetic inheritance. My father did not share many personal stories, but as an immigrant, he always tried to fit in to a new world. He supported his family by being a salesman, and he learned early on with each joke and every story he could tell to distract a customer, he’d gain a sale. Mother’s stories were all personal. She shared all of her memories with me – probably too many for a child to integrate and not feel as though I was a part of that world in Russia, reliving it all with her each time she told me yet another story. Yet, at the same time, from as early as I can remember, Mother always said that everyone’s life is worthy of a book and that if she were a writer she’d tell her story if it could help just one person.

So, to answer your question I’d have to say that I know she would be proud to know that in telling her story and mine, we are helping people take secrets out of their closet and not feel ashamed to seek the best help available for their family .  . . and though much more funding is needed to deal with the epidemic numbers of young suicides and mental illness, in general, there is certainly much more help and acceptance available today than when I was growing up.

To answer the next part of your question: Every aspect of having published my memoir is “satisfying, healing, and invigorating.” Though it took me many, many years to teach myself how to write, since I never allowed myself to consider writing creatively because my brother was a writer and that role had been taken in the family. . . I am now able to identify myself as a writer.

This memoir was a labor of love and tenacity and I do miss not writing. Once I completed writing the book, I definitely experienced writer’s withdrawal and, in the hope of fulfilling my need to continue writing, I do plan to revive a blog that I’d written for three years, “A Psychotherapist’s Journey,” for which Wellsphere named me the Top Blogger in the area of mental health.

Knowing that I have speaking engagements lined up and I’m currently in the process of this blog tour, it’s not “over.” Without being overly sentimental, I’d add that it is as life itself, a work that will continue to be in process.

Notes

Linda Appleman Shapiro’s Home Page
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/lindaapplemanshapiro41
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/lashapiro1
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1421689.Linda_Appleman_Shapiro

Click here to listen to an audio interview with Linda Appleman Shapiro

For brief descriptions and links to all the posts on Memory Writers Network, click here.

To order my book Memoir Revolution about the powerful trend to create, connect, and learn, see the Amazon page for eBook or Paperback.

To order my step-by-step how-to guide to write your memoir, click here.

To order my self-help workbook for developing habits, overcoming self-doubts, and reaching readers, read my book How to Become a Heroic Writer.

Conflicted about American Melting-Pot: Cultural Identity in Memoir

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by Jerry Waxler

Author of Memoir Revolution: a guide to memoirs, including yours.

America is a massive social experiment in which ethnic groups from all over the world come together and form a new blended culture by divesting some of their culture of origin. However, in the process of blending, we leave behind some of the familiarity of being in an ethnic group.This is not an easy process, since group identity can be built into our self-images through rituals, accents and food. And even built into our genes, through skin and hair color, nose and eye shape, and other inherited traits.

So what happens when you attempt to assimilate into a culture where you feel like an outsider? The dissonance between who you see at home and how you are received out in the world can create internal strife.

The feeling is highlighted in Sue William Silverman’s third memoir Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White, Anglo-Saxon Jew. In this third part of our interview, I ask her to help me understand the experiences that drove her to write the book.

Jerry Waxler: I was born into a Jewish family, and when I attempted to assimilate into American culture, I felt enormously conflicted, as if I was betraying my religious heritage by blending into the larger culture. Because the whole process required emotions that I didn’t clearly understand, I spent a lifetime in an unconscious battle, assuming that to be American I had to distance myself from being Jewish. This paradox caused endless confusion about my identity. Now that I’m reading memoirs and writing my own, I’m consciously reviewing the journey of assimilation and cultural identity. The undeniable fact that I did grow up Jewish makes me realize how ludicrous it’s been to try to pretend I’m not.

What was your experience? Say more about the process of reflecting back on your journey as a person born into a well-defined ethnic culture trying to blend into the larger culture of Americanism.

Sue William Silverman: I have a feeling we’re not alone, that many Jews are conflicted about whether – and how much – to assimilate. Growing up, I had Jewish friends who had nose bobs, or tried in other ways to look more Christian. I also have relatives who Americanized their last names in the belief they’d be more successful in their careers.

Of course there were – and are – tangible reasons for this. I grew up in a time when colleges still had quotas on the number of Jews they would accept. Likewise, housing subdivisions once had restrictive covenants to keep Jews out – as well as African Americans, and Latinos, and anyone else considered “other.” Anti-Semitism has always existed, so there are always incentives to pass.

As much as I myself once wanted to pass…I now just as much don’t want to. As you can see, I publish under my real name, “Silverman.” So no mistaking that name as anything other than Jewish. (For those of you who haven’t read my book, I’ve been married twice – and divorced twice – but, while married, I took each of my husband’s decidedly Christian names.)

I’ve now come to a much more comfortable place within myself. I owe a large part of this to the writing process. By writing the first memoir, I was able to process much of the destruction of growing up in an incestuous family. By writing Love Sick, I was able to work through the shame of a sexual addiction. Now, by writing The Pat Boone Fan Club, I’ve been able to explore the ambiguous feelings toward Judaism while growing up and, through this exploration, am much more accepting of myself, more at peace.

Notes
Sue William SIlverman’s Home Page
The Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo-Saxon Jew

For brief descriptions and links to all the posts on Memory Writers Network, click here.

To order my book Memoir Revolution about the powerful trend to create, connect, and learn, see the Amazon page for eBook or Paperback.

To order my step-by-step how-to guide to write your memoir, click here.

Memoirs Chronicle Search for Identity in the Melting Pot, Pt 1

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by Jerry Waxler

Author of Memoir Revolution: a guide to memoirs, including yours.

At the beginning of the Memoir Revolution, Frank McCourt in Angela’s Ashes and Jeanette Walls in Glass Castle horrified readers with the challenges of growing up in chaotic, impoverished homes. The spectacular success of these bestsellers ensured a whole genre of Coming of Age memoirs. These stories about that period of life continue to extend our collective understanding of the many challenges kids face on their journey to become adults.

Take for example Karen Levy’s beautifully written memoir My Father’s Gardens about a young girl whose parents moved back and forth between Israel and the U.S.. She did not suffer from alcoholism, child abuse or neglect, or poverty. The dramatic tension in her memoir is generated by her constant search for identity.

When she moved to the United States, her Israeli accent gave her away as a foreigner. However, when she went back to Israel, she experienced the same problem in reverse. Her Americanized accent made her an outsider in Israel, as well. This constant state of trying to belong forced her to ask an extreme version of the question every young person faces. “Who am I and how do I fit in?”

At first glance, moving back and forth between two countries seems like an extreme aberration. However, when you look more closely, you can see similarities to what millions of kids face when they go back and forth between the cultural mixing at school during the day, and ethnicity of their home at night. In modernity, with its great mixing and migrating, an increasing number of children are growing up in a culture different from the one in which their parents or grandparents were born. For those kids, the search for identity is complicated by many of the same tensions that influenced Karen Levy.

To add to the challenge of modernity, more people marry across cultural lines, creating a dual identity inside their own homes. If you are one of the millions have had to find themselves while bridging across two or more cultures, Karen Levy’s memoir will awaken familiar feelings. Even if your own Coming of Age did not involve complex cultural mixing, your ability to navigate in modernity will be enhanced by learning more about the psychological conflicts caused by trying to fit in.

Writing Prompt
If you are writing your own memoir, see if Karen Levy’s search for identity can help you get in touch with some of your own dilemmas about the question “who am I and where do I fit in?”

What understandings about your culture did you learn in your family and neighborhood? Write a scene when you realized that there were other cultures that might not accept you, and might even consider you to be the Other. What did that feel like? What impact did these cultural interactions have on your journey to find your own identity?

My search for cultural identity
When  I was growing up, I felt safe listening to the Yiddish my parents spoke in order to keep secrets from us kids. And I felt safe when I walked the few blocks to synagogue, crowded to overflowing during High Holidays. Because of the predominance of Jews in my part of Philadelphia, even at school most of my classmates and teachers were Jewish.

So as a teenager, when I opened a book and saw photos of the Holocaust, depicting those who had been tortured and murdered for looking and sounding like me, I was stunned to realize being Jewish is dangerous. However, I never personally experienced the stress of fitting into a non-Jewish culture until I was eighteen years old.

When I entered school at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, the predominance of northern Europeans threw me into massive confusion about my identity. Not only were many of my classmates blond, and almost all of them Christian, but when the war protests heated up, I discovered that many people in rural parts of the state considered the protests a product of Jewish agitators. As the police and politicians become increasingly aggressive against us, I realized that I was participating in a battle as old as the human race, with dominant groups feeling threatened by the Other.

Over the years of growing up, I again relaxed and learned to participate in a culture that is based, at least in theory, on the attempt to ignore differences among people. Later in life, when I began to look back at my own development, I often wondered why I struggled so desperately to travel from child to adult. Once I began writing my memoir and reading others, I realized that even though adults do their best to ignore these differences, when their kids go out into the world, they must figure these things out for themselves.

Kids from ethnic backgrounds face an exercise of getting the two images to overlap, like the familiar optical test at the eye doctor’s office. One image is the one you learned about yourself in your childhood home, and the other is the image you learn about yourself in the wider world. The exercise of bringing these two into focus creates wonderful material to explore in the story of yourself.

In the second part of this article, I list a selection of memoirs that highlight the attempt to make sense of cultural identity in a variety of circumstances.

Notes
Here is a link to My Father’s Garden by Karen Levy.

For brief descriptions and links to all the posts on Memory Writers Network, click here.

To order my book Memoir Revolution about the powerful trend to create, connect, and learn, see the Amazon page for eBook or Paperback.

To order my step-by-step how-to guide to write your memoir, click here.

A Memoir of a Girl’s Urgent Need to Find Identity

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by Jerry Waxler

Author of Memoir Revolution: a guide to memoirs, including yours.

Karen Levy grew up alternating between the United States and Israel, never sure of which one she belonged to. The story of her Coming of Age, as told in the memoir, My Father’s Gardens, shows how her split identity created challenges on many fronts. Wherever she went, she felt like an outsider. Friendship was made more difficult because she kept leaving them behind. Her first job involved her in military intrigue, as a result of mandatory conscription in Israel. And relationships were made almost impossible by her overly protective mother, who demanded her daughter’s undivided loyalty.

In the end, she resolved her own challenge to grow up by choosing a country, settling down with a man and writing for a living. The resolution with her parents was more problematic, lending a sad note to her difficult choices.

Even before I read the first page I was hooked on the story of a woman who had to constantly find herself. Search for identity is one of my favorite themes in a memoir. On the surface, such an introspective search might not seem important enough to motivate me to read and enjoy a whole book. And yet, when I think back on the problems of growing up, my own search for identity drove me almost mad.

My grandparents left Ukraine to escape religious persecution. When they settled in the U.S. they stuck together with their own kind, as immigrants tended to do. My enclave of Jews in an ethnic neighborhood in Philadelphia kept me feeling safe and whole as long as I stayed home. But once I moved to the Midwest, I struggled to find a balance between my heritage and the desire to be accepted as an American. To find this new, blended identity, I attempted the peculiar, and as it turned out, maddening exercise of reshaping my self-image. This psychologically-demanding task I imposed on myself at the age of 18 sent me careening through a series of experiments that complicated the already challenging process of growing up.

As a young man, trying to mix into the “Melting Pot” of United States culture, I was trapped in a long journey of assimilation. As I grew older, I discovered that the entire country consists of people who surrender some of their ancestral identity in order to enter a shared one.

As the great mixing of modernity extends across the globe with massive migrations and blending cultures, people all over the world are attempting to let go of parts of their traditional culture in order to find psychological wholeness among the modern mix.

The Memoir Revolution is a wonderful tool to help us achieve our new identities as citizens of the modern world. Memoirs let writers and readers apply the power of story to the important task of being healthy, whole human beings.

Karen Levy’s attempt to connect with her own country became more difficult than most because she was torn between two, never sure of which one reflected her true identity. As a result of her unusual situation, and her deep, sophisticated story about her experience, the memoir offers a rich, complex look at the whole process of steering between cultures in order to find Self.

Other memoirs that explore self-identity torn between cultures

For another look at this tearing between two cultural identities, read the powerful page-turner Catfish and Mandala by Andrew X. Pham. In it, the young man returned to his birth country, Vietnam, only to find that he was angrily rejected by his former countrymen because he grew up in the U.S. Ultimately he had to face the fact that he needed to find his identity within himself.

In Rebecca Walker’s memoir Black, White, and Jewish, the author lives half her life with her white lawyer father in his upper class neighborhood, and the other half with her famous black author mother, Alice, in a lower middle class neighborhood. For a deeper look at people who straddled the fence between two races read the oral history by Lise Funderberg called Black, White, and Other about kids with mixed-race parents. By straddling the fence between races, they had special challenges that highlighted the universal journey of finding the story of self.

Notes

Here is a link to My Father’s Garden by Karen Levy.

For brief descriptions and links to all the posts on Memory Writers Network, click here.

To order my book Memoir Revolution about the powerful trend to create, connect, and learn, see the Amazon page for eBook or Paperback.

To order my step-by-step how-to guide to write your memoir, click here.