PREFACE My narrative project is about my mom who has a mental illness, and me learning to overcome it and what it actually was when I was younger. Quite honestly, I didn't want to write about it but I decided to treat it as a form of therapy. In the story, I'm looking back on what it actually was and how it's shaped me as a person. As I look back on it in my memoir, I now understand what it actually is. In previous academic classes I've had, we've never exactly been required to write about something like this to this extent. Sure we might have written about a memory or something along those lines, but I've never been asked "well, what's the problem and how do you overcome it in the story?"
Looking back on it, this is really only one of my first times that I've had to sit down and think before actually writing. In my blog posts, such as blog #3. In blog post #3, we composed an emotional scene and I wrote about one of my best friends Kristin! It allowed me to look back on that memory of her and truly think about what happened when we shared that time together. In blog post #4 this was another way for me to improve my writing, but again it wasn't something big such as my narrative project. I wrote about my dad taking me rollerskating for the first time, and how my love for skating truly sprouted. For my project, I feel like I dig much deeper into my personal life. Blog post #5 allowed me to look into my narrative much more and figure out just exactly what I was talking about, and why.
Before this project, I always had a pretty jumbled emotion on how I felt about my mom and the mental illness that she has. I was never so sure and I just tried to block it out of my mind for the most part. After writing though, it allowed me to understand and connect with my brain just exactly how I was feeling- and how I still feel to this day. I still feel a bit confused sometimes, and for the most part I do still try and ignore that part of my life. I know deep down that I can't ignore it forever though. I decided to make my narrative project private more so for myself because even writing alone made me a little bit uncomfortable. I know that I have an audience in the class and for me, it's just not something I'd be comfortable with sharing with that audience.