How do you write about your life without causing chaos?

I started writing in two different documents about other things and realised I couldn’t write anything until I’d written this. My alternative title was, ‘I trigger people and it’s not my fault’, I may as well call it that.

I’ve never found it hard to write about my life. It’s never felt like a risk or a stretch or anything except completely obvious. And I can’t tell you enough that it has also felt urgent, often necessary even. But I never considered that me writing words down would cause the kind of trouble that it has. I sometimes think that I was naive and I sometimes think that I don’t know my own power and I sometimes think I should have thought that through.

I just had a call with someone who said she struggles with the narrative, well it’s your story you should be able to write what you want. And I felt glad to hear her say that, because guess what I have a heart and most of the time it’s not worth hurting someone else for the sake of your right to tell a story. But at the same time, I have, in moments, been willing to fight to the death for the right to tell the story.

I’ve written about breaking hearts and ruining relationships by mistake by my pen (keyboard) before, so I think, yeah, there’s all that, and also there’s other stuff too. The thing I really didn’t realise was that writing about my life would invite other people in. From the disarming feeling of realising someone has a sense of knowing you when you don’t know them, to strange comments that overstep the mark, to the occasional embarrassment of changing your mind or calming down after one particular flurry that in the moment felt that important.

For better or for worse, I have this thing where I don’t really know much about what’s going on. In the news, in fashion, in trends, in memes, in celebrity culture, anywhere except my own overflowing bubble. So I miss things. All the time, I miss things. And recently a few times it’s come to my attention that other people are doing similar things to me, putting out the same message, overlaps in work with much more recognition and success. I’ll discover an Instagram profile that all my friends follow and see there’s someone saying something similar to me, but with 100 thousand followers and I’ll think, how funny, I thought I was the first person in the world to have that thought.

I imagine it’s a particularly unbearable thing about me. A tendency to feel like I am the centre of the universe with not a huge amount of awareness of what is actually going on. But my friends, it’s set me up on good stead because to write and share my writing, I have to have conviction in my belief that I have something to say that is worth saying. And yeah, I guess I do have that.

To write about your life in a meaningful way you have to be participating in your life in a meaningful way.

I am an out loud processor and an everything is everything person. This means I unfortunately live with Norah Efron’s ‘everything is copy’ soundbite reverberating through my life. I have recently had to face the consequences of that, jarring someone else, angering someone else, triggering someone else. And so on the one hand I think, it’s not about you, it’s about everyone and on the other, I think, but I don’t actually want to set fires in every house I set foot in. The truth is, that everything I write, it’s not you it’s me, all of it, it’s all about me, even when you read your own name. And perhaps, that should be my only disclaimer.

I thought, when triggered myself the other day, in an outrage of defence and standing my ground, I can’t wait for the day when someone writes about me. And I thought, why does it feel so bad? To see yourself mirrored on the page? It’s what I spend all my time trying to find. A mirror. I also thought it was interesting that I felt such hot rage about it all. I couldn’t figure out where standing up for myself was having integrity and where it was being a cunt. Both probably. But I also couldn’t help but want to stamp my feet and say get me, for godsake just get me, you’re missing the point, must I always be so misunderstood? Tabby said yesterday, that song makes me want to walk round a graveyard and feel misunderstood and I thought, wow, now you see me.

After a comment on my Substack the other day that was personal enough for me to delete without missing a beat, Jess said, wow why do things like this always happen to you? An over-familiar addressing of me, a boundary crossed, a telling off, a putting in my place, another story that just has that energy of christ things like this just happen to me. I sat with my family last week and we ate Indian takeaway and I said, people have always loved to tell me off. They can’t wait for the opportunity. And I suppose in summary, it is simply the trade off. And the whole point, all of this, is working out all the tiny trade offs, the ones that are worth it and the times it’d be better to shut the fuck up.