Writing a memoir is not the thing that heals you.

an essay that came from a FAQ

Recently, the Community of Writers invited me to contribute an essay for their quarterly literary magazine, the Omnium Gatherum. Something related to memoir, they said. So, I decided to write a rebuttal to a common question memoir authors hear: Was it healing to write this book? Other variations include: Is writing a memoir cathartic? Was it therapeutic? Do you feel better now?!

I dislike this question for a few reasons, but mostly because healing from grief and trauma is not something you can shortcut or do alone. It’s more nuanced and multifaceted than that. (And, in my observation, people who say that writing was the thing that healed them often have other tools that are overlooked like social support, therapy, yoga/movement, bodywork, a spiritual practice, etc. etc.)

Whether you’re a writer or a reader, I think it’s an important topic to consider. It’s helpful to understand what different kinds of writing (journaling vs. writing for publication) can achieve and who benefits. Plus, I wanted to share a few of the things that DID help me heal enough to publish the book. So I’m sharing the essay in full here.

(You can also click over to read it at the Omnium Gatherum Quarterly issue number 16. I’m in great company there alongside other authors I deeply admire.)

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WRITING A MEMOIR IS NOT THE THING THAT HEALS YOU

by Gina DeMillo Wagner

The question came up at every bookstore reading, during podcast interviews, and at media appearances.

“Was it healing to write?”

It, my memoir, Forces of Nature, takes place in the aftermath of my brother’s sudden death and follows my quest for answers about him, about the nature of grief, the limits of caregiving, and the forces that shape our sense of family and home.

Writing the memoir taught me that every question is hiding other questions. And so, as I looked at the faces of readers asking me, “Was it cathartic to write this? Do you feel better now?” I saw their bodies vibrating with their own family secrets, their unexamined pain. In questioning me, what they really wanted to know was whether writing a memoir could heal them too.

The answer is no. Not because I’m broken or because the book failed me in some way, but because healing was never the objective of my memoir. Nor do I believe it should be the objective of theirs (or yours).

It’s a misconception that writing about our grief and trauma is the thing that will cure us, that getting it all out will not only make visible your pain but transmute it somehow. This is magical thinking, an idea perpetuated by well-meaning life coaches and social media gurus and high school English teachers.

I’m not saying writing isn’t beneficial. I have a stack of journals at home, packed margin-to-margin with words that I hope no one ever reads. I write first thing in the morning, before my inner critic comes online. The effusive nature of this practice is a form of meditation. It clears my mind and helps me develop self-compassion.

But a memoir is different. It’s a book. A volume of work, crafted for public consumption. A memoir evokes the writer’s experience for the reader. It not only documents the past, but confronts it. If a journal holds the unedited, myopic runoff of our psyche, then the memoir renders it into something communal and useful.

The work of a memoir author is to examine time and memory, to compress it or layer it, maybe rearrange it, to find echoes and points of resonance, like holding a prism up to the light and tilting it until you see what colors hold true. There’s no prerequisite that the memoir author be healed or unhealed, that they have all the answers or none. They only need to be human, honest, willing to show us how their story is actually everyone’s story. They connect the dots between the personal and the universal.

The other problem I have with this question is that I think we sometimes conflate healing with acceptance or an absence of pain. I know I’m not the first to caution: Writing a memoir won’t make anyone love you or apologize to you. It won’t satisfy your craving for revenge. It won’t mend a strained relationship. It won’t exorcise the trauma from your body. It won’t bring anyone back from the dead. It won’t inoculate you against further grief.

If you’re writing for catharsis, buy a journal. If you’re writing to create a mirror or portal or an offering – to your readers, through time, or to your younger self – write the memoir.

In my experience, healing is kaleidoscopic, dynamic, complex. It happens in relationship to ourselves and to others. It comes as much from reading as writing. It requires social support. Witnessing others as a way of witnessing ourselves. Interrogating our lives in the context of the systems that formed us.

Want to know how I found enough peace to write my story? It happened off the page. It happened in my therapist’s office where I first examined the secrets I kept from myself. It happened at 3 AM, when I’d meet up with my brother in my dreams. It happened in my car, singing along to the radio and weeping. It happened over coffee with friends. It happened on mountain trails, my footsteps and breath mixing with the wind and coming back to me in birdsong. It happened on massage tables. It happened in art galleries, at libraries, in movie theaters. It happened face down in a swimming pool, bits of grief and anger falling out of my mouth with every stroke, dissolving in my wake. It happened surrounded by my partner and children, my family of choice.

It’s still happening. Perhaps in that way writing is like healing. It never feels done.