Who owns your life story?

I've just had this meme flash up on my Facebook timeline and it got me thinking about something I have thought about a lot.

It's an interesting point, one for which I spent many MANY hours discussing as part of my Autobiography module on my MA Lit course; the idea that there is no absolute or fixed truth in personal history, just different perspectives, perceptions and responses to experiences, which all lead to a truth for each individual; which is still a truth even if we don't agree with it.

One of the reasons I have found this particular idea complex is because of my own personal history. At the age of thirteen my father suffered a full mental breakdown and the manifestation of serious bi-polar and personality disorders, which led to him being hospitalised on many occasions. Twenty years later he is better than he was, but he is still a very damaged and vulnerable man; and I guess on some level, all those who loved him are a little bit the same.

The meme suggests that those who might be badly portrayed should have behaved better, but so often other people's 'bad' or negative behaviour comes out of their own damage and suffering. Does this make them entirely responsible? I believe so but there are caveats. What about behaviours suffered due to addiction or abuse survival? What about behaviours conducted because of psychological illnesses? You see, it's a far more complicated issue than the meme suggests - as empowering as it is.

The experiences I lived, some of them truly horrific, at a formative time of my development, have of course influenced who I am both in my daily life and as an author. My own psychology clearly plays a part in my creative outputs.

For a long time, I didn't write anything 'public' about living with a parent with mental illness, not because I was ashamed, far from it, I believe we should all start talking about it more openly, but because although it was very much MY story, it was also the story that belonged to my father and my mother; as a result it has became the big elephant sitting on the writing desk.

How can something so significant to my own make-up be kept hidden? I've gone around in circles for years about my responsibility to share about my experiences in the hope that it might offer strength, inspiration, information and hope to other young people living with parents who don't quite fit the job description.

A few months back I wrote a short story for a Radio 4 completion titled 'Mad Dad', which was the first time I actually wrote autobiographically about this period in my life. Before submitting it, I spoke with my mother about her feelings on it. That conversation was too personal to share here, but the outcome was that I should go for it and submit it. It didn't get accepted, which I had prepared myself for as it was stated in the guidelines that they were looking for works that were lighter in their tone and I guess that mental health was a shade of darkness to far.

I have to say, that part of me is incredibly relieved. It would have been a big step to go so audibly public with such a personal story, and I'm not really sure how I would have felt hearing my world from the mouth of another. So 'Mad Dad' now sits in my trunk, waiting to be unpacked at another time in another place.

I know it isn't just me that has battled with this whole idea of life story ownership - there was a controversy over this idea of story and experience ownership in the novel, 'The Help', where those involved in the story believed that they had been exploited for financial gain; especially when the film rights were sold. Should everybody portrayed have received a cut of the money?

And on the other side of things, I guess it's interesting to think about how we might be represented if we were to be written into the autobiography of someone we knew - would we feel confident that they'd treat our behaviours, motivations and actions warmly?

Has anybody else struggled with this dilemma? I'd love to hear your stories and ideas.

Flash Fiction: Hunted

Anya has been taking early morning runs in these woods for months. Today they feel different; as if somehow everything has changed around her in an invisible way. It rained in the early hours of the morning and now there is the metronomic drip of rain falling through the tree canopy. The path is a slimy way. Brambles snag at her ankles.

She can’t seem to get her heart into a steady rhythm. It is as if it knows of a fear that she is yet to discover. She pulls out the left bud of her iPod as if to listen out for threat. Somehow, it makes her feel slightly less vulnerable. She reasons with herself that she is entirely safe here. Nobody has travelled these paths for days: the spider webs mark the passage of undisturbed time. The track she runs today is not her usual way.

It would be easy to get lost in these woods. Even when they break onto a road, it looks the same as any other. It is remote here. Shuttered houses huddle together in little groups of four or five throughout the forest. This is the closest there comes to being a 'town' in at least thirty miles. Where Anya now lives is on the edge of one of the larger settlements. It has a bar, a bakery and a church - nothing else.

Last night she cycled to the bar - which is really more like someone's front room. She thought it would be nice to connect with the locals and had visions of sitting amongst her new neighbours eating a bowl of local pot-au-eau and exchanging local gossip. In the end, her spattering of French hadn’t been needed. The few residents in the bar, mainly farming men, had done their best to ignore her to her face, and had muttered deeply under their breath when they thought she wasn't looking. But at least the beer had been good. Crisp cold and perfectly pulled.

All of this had been her father’s dream – the French house on a hill, overlooking sweeping forests and vineyards. He had been happy here. The house was more like a small chateau: like something out of a fairytale, but Anya had never felt at ease in the place. To her it had the faint odour of decay clinging to its faded beauty. When her father had bought it, it had come furnished with the previous occupants’ belongings. It was a house haunted with somebody else’s memories.

It had never really been her intention to stay in France. She had come purely because her father had died and the estate needed ‘sorting’. Her brother was far too busy flying between London and New York and didn’t have the time - he'd never had the time for their father. When she'd arrived, she had found that the vineyards attached to the property were turning over a nice little profit and had somewhat of a reasonable reputation. It would have been foolish to let the opportunity pass, and the house held promise.

It is about all of this that Anya thinks on as she runs. But there are other thoughts at the back of her mind. It is as if a separate voice is trying to speak to her: one which she is doing her best to ignore. The voice comments on the strange things Anya is seeing in the woods. They are nothing alarming, just notable. Someone has been here – making things.

The things are nothing scary or strange. Anya reasons they are probably just part of the local hunting life: pens for sanglier, or traps for other game. They have been made from materials lying about on the woodland floor; sticks, stones and old random bits of discarded twine. Some of the structures have been suspended from the branches. She shivers despite the heat of running. Somewhere amongst the tapestry of leaves, little bells tinkle.

All at once, the voice is screaming danger at her. Her eyes have been looking hard, noticing that not all of the objects suspended from the branches are twigs: some are bones. She has reasoned with herself enough. It is time to turn around.

As soon as she does, she wishes she hadn’t. The path is blocked. Three men stand with rifles in hand, hunting dogs at their heels. They are nonchalant, relaxed – here for recreation: some are smoking. She makes the decision to turn back in the direction she'd been running. The men look unfit and she believes she could easily outrun them but knows the dogs will be fast. The small hope is short lived. The path is blocked in both directions and she is caught between a mirror image. The only choice left is to leave the path and make a run for it through the tangled mess of trees.

She bolts to the left. She can hear their laughter moving into the distance and for one small moment she dares to believe they were just sporting with her: that they meant no real harm. She stops for breath. Panic has made her lungs burn.

In the near distance a horn is blown and the dogs yap with excitement. The hunt begins and Anya takes flight. She knows she is running for her life