*Trigger Warning for self-harm. If you, or someone you know is considering hurting themselves, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1–800–273–8255 for help.
In my mind, I was never “f*cked-up enough” to be a good writer. I felt like I needed to prove my worthiness to tell these stories — the only stories that I judged really mattered. I grew up with Thirteen, Lolita, and playwrights like Tennessee Williams, Naomi Wallace and Quiara Alegría Hudes. My household was filled with foreign art films — my friends came from trailer parks and parents with undiagnosed bipolar disorders — and my schools assigned books that pushed limits and pressed buttons. The art that I felt most connected to conveyed at least some kind of struggle with the self. Those stories felt important because they illuminated what I didn’t yet understand but so desperately wanted to.
Sometime around the 5th grade, my peers started describing experiences that had never crossed my sheltered and privileged field of consciousness. I got it into my head that in order to be compassionate and empathetic towards them, I needed to understand what they were describing through experience. Now I wonder if this pathos towards “method acting” (shall we call it?) came from the age old trope of the tortured artist. That in order to create meaningful work, to forge true connections with other people…
