If you had asked me how my partner Jon and I had met when he was still alive, I would have told you it was “through mutual friends.” The truth — that we found each other in the rooms of recovery — wasn’t something I typically led with.
As someone who’d suffered the shame of active addiction, I guarded my anonymity carefully. The dope sniffing, the anonymous sex and the selling of my belongings on a city sidewalk to get enough money to get high were details from my past that you had to be on a need-to-know basis to find out about.
I’d become a functional sober woman, active in my community. Jon and I even owned a home together! Not that we were keep-up-with-the-Joneses kind of people, but from the outside, we passed. My particularly gritty history and the reality that decades later I still needed meetings in more than a few fellowships to keep me sane and sober were not facts that most people would have guessed.
Then, in our 12th year together and my 24th year sober, my beloved Jon died by suicide.
In the aftermath of his public death ― the police and the media were involved ― there was nothing to hide anymore. This wasn’t entirely the case, even if it felt that way. What was true, though, was that details of my lover’s life and how it ended were cause for some wildly inappropriate speculation. But in the early stages of my grief, I wasn’t capable of doing anything about offering my view of what had happened.
After years of bereavement counseling, I was finally ready to speak up. My beautiful, gentle-souled man had been chewed up by life, and I wanted to let the broadest audience possible know to take better care of themselves, of their loved ones and of the planet. So I began writing.
As I dug into the story of him, which necessarily included me, it became impossible to avoid revealing aspects of my life that I thought I’d never divulge so publicly.
What I wrote became a book: “An Armsfull of Birds: A Personal Field Guide to Love, Loss, and Commitment,” published in May of this year. In it are details of crawling through subway tunnels and being beaten by the physically abusive man I lived with before I got sober. The black eyes, the chipped teeth and the concussions I walked around with, the violence of sexual assault and the call to the cops to get me out of the apartment are all rendered vividly on the page.
And so are the particulars of my various mental health diagnoses, my own confrontation with a wish to bow out of life early, and the psychiatric treatment that saved me. Everything that led me to recovery and to the man I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with was woven into the story that I now wanted people to read.
I’m not sure what I was expecting from publication. I know I’d hoped that readers would be moved to reflect on their own lives and relationships, including with all of Earth’s creatures. And that they would take action as a result — whether that be seeking help themselves, showing up to help others or pitching in to save our wounded planet.
I think I forgot that the vehicle for that reflection was me. Or perhaps I was maintaining a bit of denial (not unusual for an addict, recovering or not) of just how revealing the memoir had become. I’d been so wrapped up in the writing and then logistics of publishing the book that I started feeling a distance from the substance of it.
One of the first calls back to the story itself was when I received an early response from the writer Jenny Lawson. The morning my publisher sent me the digital advance copy, I emailed it to Jenny in the hope that she might provide a blurb for it. I figured it was a long shot. I mean, Jenny Lawson? She’s the bomb! A No. 1 New York Times bestselling writer and the beloved creator of the hugely popular site The Bloggess.
Imagine my absolute and utter astonishment when literally — and I do mean literally — five hours later I received this back from her: “I opened it up to read the first few pages and then spent five hours reading the rest. Beautifully done. Poignant, human, authentic.”
I sat down on the closest chair and wept. On some level, I must have been feeling the risk of having bared so much so blatantly. Jenny’s response felt like an affirmation that the more I was willing to share, the more my story might resonate with readers and thus the more it might have an impact, the reason I’d been compelled to write the book in the first place.
However, not every reaction was as immediately rewarding to receive as hers. One early critic wrote that she typically didn’t read “misery” memoirs, and that this author had had her share of it. Though the reviewer went on to praise the book as “hopeful and inspiring,” I was tripped up by the comment about the toughness of my life.
Initially, I felt defensive. Ashamed. I didn’t want to be pitied or seen as a victim. Is that what everyone thinks — that my life is filled with misery? Sure, I’d been through the wringer, but hasn’t everyone?
This critic’s response told me that no, they hadn’t. Or not to the extent that I had, it seemed. Of course, many have had it far worse. I’m still here to tell my story, after all. But not everyone’s life makes for a book — a page-turner, I’ve been told — and it turns out that mine has.
“As I dug into the story of him, which necessarily included me, it became impossible to avoid revealing aspects of my life that I thought I’d never divulge so publicly.”
As my book made its way out into the world at large after these advance reader reviews, I began getting a variety of responses through all sorts of mediums: text messages, comment streams, questions at live events, emails, DMs on social media, anonymous art left at the door of my home, cards, phone calls, reviews, podcast interviews, asides at my food co-op, and some occasionally awkward conversations with publicists and event planners.
All of these people now knew that I’ve given blow jobs to strangers. That I couldn’t stop tearing myself apart when I looked in the mirror. That I’d been raped. They’re aware that I’m treated with psychiatric medication. And that if I were to have the glass of wine someone might casually offer me at a party, there’d be no telling what would happen next. Every now and then, it calls me up short when I consider what anyone who’s read the book might be thinking when we come in contact.
My neighbors! The guy who mows my lawn! People at the gym! Ooooof. But I haven’t been avoiding them. I’ve been meeting the exposure head-on. I don’t raise the topic myself, but if the other person has read the book and feels moved to let me know, I listen. I try to respond in kind.
A lot of people have someone close who’s struggled with addiction or have lost a loved one. Or been sent into deep grief by the loss of a pet (that’s in the book, too).
Then there have been the many events I’ve participated in to specifically bring attention to the book. I sit at the front of the room with another author and read from its pages, and then enter into conversation. Mostly these events have been, in a word, lovely, with the occasional exception of an ill-informed question from the audience. (No, I do not feel responsible for the way Jon died.)
Something I’ve had to remind myself of in this process of going public with my story is not to take its reception personally. All writers contend with rejection, but with such an intimately personal book, it’s been extra important for my well-being that I remember that someone’s reaction says more about them than it does about my memoir. Perhaps the reviewer who initially thought my book was about a miserable life hasn’t encountered serious hardship herself.
Another thing I’ve had to learn is that I actually don’t have to reply in kind to every reader’s response. Strangers and familiars alike often share at length how the book has affected them. At any moment, a text or email or voicemail or social media comment or direct message might come in that is a play-by-play of someone’s reading experience or a detailed accounting of the losses and challenges the reader has gone through. It can be exhausting to receive so much emotional intensity coming back at me.
Don’t get me wrong, I am beyond grateful that so many people have engaged with my book! I really do love hearing back from readers (so please don’t stop!), especially when they let me know that I did Jon justice and that they wish they’d met him, or that they didn’t want the book to end and were filled with light and love after finishing it. Some have even told me they’ve started reading it for a second time. And I am particularly thrilled when I hear that they are giving the book to someone who might need it or are cleaning their birdfeeders more frequently or getting involved with a local land trust — a few of the actions I suggest at the end of the book.
I think these kinds of heart-filled responses are more prone to happen when one writes so honestly — people seem hungry for tales of integrity and intimacy. We are, after all, the storytelling species. It’s how we make sense of being human. My willingness to get into the nitty-gritty of not only my dark past, but even the less dramatic, if still unflattering, details of my life in sobriety and with Jon offers readers an opportunity to come to terms with their own foibles and flaws.
It’s what catharsis is all about. Storytellers take their audiences through an experience that helps them to purge emotions they may already be carrying. That’s why even a book with a bittersweet ending can leave the reader feeling lighter. There’s joy to be had in experiencing a range of human emotions without having to live the actual events oneself. This may be especially true if the reader has gone through similar trials, and the book — or movie or play — gets through to the other side of the challenge. At minimum, it offers an opportunity to identify and to feel with another. To know we are not alone in this thing we call living a life.
In my case, writing and publishing “An Armsfull of Birds” has given me a chance to feel like all that I’ve survived can serve a purpose. I get to demonstrate that no matter how hard things might get here on earth, committing deeply and loving fully are still risks worth taking. Turns out, there is no shame in that.
Cara Benson is the author of the memoir “An Armsfull of Birds: A Personal Field Guide to Love, Loss, and Commitment.” Other writing has appeared in The New York Times, Boston Review, Sierra Magazine, Orion, Los Angeles Review of Books, and selected for Best American Poetry. She is the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship and taught poetry in a NY State Correctional Facility for eight years. Benson lives and writes in a former church in the ancestral homelands of the Stockbridge Munsee Band of Mohicans. www.carabensonwriter.com.
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If you or someone you know needs help, call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org for mental health support. Additionally, you can find local mental health and crisis resources at dontcallthepolice.com. Outside of the U.S., please visit the International Association for Suicide Prevention.