ElsaMars;

I mentioned in an earlier post that I have several MI friends who I share details of my illness with. This year I am writing a mental illness memoir with some of my experiences getting laid down in black and white for the first time. I asked my friends, "Should I mention episodes of violence in my illness?" One friend warned me to not say anything I don't want coming back at me, and the other said, "Go for it; tell the real story and show readers how psychosis works."

I have decided to try out the truth in the early draft, and then scale back as self-protection kicks in. I don't mind breaking ground in areas that everyone else finds unpalatable, but then there is just antagonizing people for shock value, and what good is that?

If you are worried that some of your MI experiences could come back to haunt you, then by all means keep them to yourself. My voices say such incredibly ugly things that I know sharing them will cost me friendships and family ties and would probably get me sued. It's not "spilling secrets," it's psychosis saying horrible things. But a lot of people don't separate psychosis from reality; to these people, if you are hearing voices, they are reality. They are revealing not symptoms but your inner reality. This leads to very strange conversations about the nature of reality; if planes slam into Twin Towers, did that happen in the real world, or in your psyche? Etc.