I saw myself in both of these stories. I felt a connection and an understanding to what both writers wrote and how they chose to put their thoughts on paper. Both memoirs were extremely relatable and kept me drawn in to their story. The memoir "Cousins" was relatable in ways different than "Growing up in therapy". The memoir "Cousins" reminded me of a friendship I had with someone and it made me reflect on other experiences I had with loss. No one wants the last conversation they have with someone they care about to be a negative one.
In "Growing up in therapy", I saw so many parts of myself in that particular story. One thing in particular, feeling that therapy only seemed to make me feel worse than I did when I went in. Depending on the writer and what they are comfortable with, I don't think either writer over shared. I saw more personal and authentic information released in "Growing up in therapy". Everything about that piece was unapologetic.
I always feel if a writer is comfortable over sharing there is never a problem with it. In "Cousins" the writer exposed a lot of personal information, but wasn't as detailed as "Growing up in therapy". I saw two versions of a speaker being personal with their readers. In "Cousins", the speaker mentioned names of places like Michigan and minor details of experiences that were going on throughout the story.
In "Growing up in Therapy" the speaker was more obvious with the details that were exposed. She name dropped and went a lot more deeper into personal experiences, her audience was able to know exactly who and what she was writing about. I saw honesty and truth in both stories, both writers just had two separate ways on how they exposed their own personal information. One version was more raw, descriptive, and detailed, while the other version was more intimate, relatable, and universal in how the story was being told.
I saw some of myself in both of those stories, too! Like you, I've had friends that I've ended on a negative note with (ones that I've actually lived with, too), rather than my cousin.
ReplyDeleteI also think that both of the writers didn't overshare. However, I wish the author of "Cousins" shared more, in fact. I think the author of "Growing Up In Therapy" didn't overshare private details, but gave us more details on things that kind of didn't matter.