This article explores the emotional impact of an ex-boyfriend's memoir that portrays the author in an unflattering light. It offers personal anecdotes and insights on navigating the feelings of hurt, anger, and self-doubt that can arise from such experiences. Drawing from the author's own struggles with negative portrayals in various media, it emphasizes the importance of letting go of the past, focusing on personal growth, and refusing to be defined by others' opinions.
My ex-boyfriend published a memoir. He’s a writer, so I expected I’d show up somewhere eventually, but now that it’s happened it’s throwing me off more than I thought it would. It’s a very small press so I’m not worried about it impacting my life in any meaningful way, and intellectually, I know he has the right to write about whatever he wants. But it still feels invasive.
He seems to see me as a totally different person from the one I think I am, and the carelessness with which he treated tertiary characters borders on cruel (a lot of irrelevant, unkind physical descriptions). I know there’s nothing I can do about it, the book is already out there, but I keep revisiting what was a difficult time to relitigate what happened in my head. How do I get past this? The reason I wanted to answer this is because A) I have had a similar experience, and B) because I think the power of this observation—“he sees me as a totally different person from the one I think I am”—is a problem that can follow us around forever if we’re not careful, with or without an ex dragging you in a memoir. But let’s start with a synopsis of my experiences and how I handled them. I’ve been on the receiving end of many unflattering portrayals in books and magazine articles and in movie scripts, most of them about my work at Gawker media, especially about when I was a defendant in the invasion of privacy case that sank the company. Regretfully, I can say that every single one of them—even the ones that intended to be “positive”—dug into some of my dark, secret wounds and insecurities that no one is supposed to know about. You used the word invasive—and that’s how it felt. “Violating” is how I have described it. Sometimes, after an article or book came out, I’d obsess for days and then decide, once and for all, that I needed to let the person who wrote the things that hurt me know how I felt. Mostly, this involved writing a fury-coated email to this reporter/friend/colleague whose characterization of me felt cheap and hurtful. Here’s an email I almost sent to a writer a couple years ago because they wrote something shitty about my past as a drug addict that ran counter to the person I think I am: You fucking suck. Just thought I’d let you know that. You are a sad, impotent little man who takes zero responsibility for his actions. Good luck with your Substack, dickwad. Sigh. Every time I read that, I say a little prayer and thank myself for not gleefully smashing “Send” and fantasizing about this person’s wilting face after they read it. Instead, I did the smart thing and let it sit there for a few days. Clear-eyed and less livid, I went back to the email and realized I was playing the victim, and then reacting like a maniac, turning myself into the sad, impotent little man I was accusing them of being. This is not to say that your feelings are unwarranted—what your ex-boyfriend did here is legitimately crappy. However, I also 100 percent believe that the best way to get past it is to commit to the new version of yourself and move forward. Whatever you do, don’t relitigate the past with him. If you still maintain a cordial friendship, drop him altogether if you have to—he’s not worthy enough of all your big feelings about this. You get to be the saner, more well-adjusted, less bitter person
Ex-Boyfriend Memoir Invasiviness Personal Growth Moving On Self-Reflection Negative Portrayal
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