everything girl: an interview
Lorissa Shepstone and I go way back. And I mean back. Like 2002 back. She’s been my right-hand designer and web goddess for all of my projects, and I rely on her heavily for advice, guidance and patience regarding all things creative and online. It’s criminal that we’ve known one another for so many years and have yet to actually hug! in person, however, we sat down, albeit virtually, and chatted about my book for her very brilliant magazine, All Things Girl.
Lorissa Shepstone: Many people can relate to what you have dealt with – some closer than others. Did you expect quite the outpouring of “me too’s†from people? How has this affected the way you view your own book?
Felicia Sullivan: I wrote this book as a testament to my strength, as a celebration of my survival and recovery, to demonstrate that alternative families are possible, and that love – the most sacred of emotions – is not unconditional. I wanted people who had been pressured into sustaining highly dysfunctional and altogether painful relationships with their parents because of the societal norm: you love your parents unconditionally, regardless of how cruel or abusive they might be. In the end, we dutiful children must always forgive and reconcile, we must shoulder the families’ shame. I vehemently disagree with this sentiment, and I wanted others who have experienced familial discord to feel comforted in the fact that there are others who have made similar brave and very difficult decisions and are possibly healthier and happier because of these choices.
For years acquaintances would admonish me, and even some have reacted to my book negatively, criticizing the fact that I’m secure and happy to have ended my relationship with my mother, and I had a take a step back and get some perspective because at the end of the day I have this one life, and I’m living it for me. Not to adhere to someone else’s choices or value judgments. Not to uphold societal norms.
And what has been perhaps the most gratifying of this process of releasing my book out into the world has been the “me-too’s!†The I’m glad I’m not alone. The Thank you for writing this. So on the days when I’m blue and I wish I would’ve written a novel because the exposure has been so great, I return to the emails I’ve saved – women taking comfort in our shared experience – and feel that publishing this book is a good thing. A work to be proud of.
Read the rest of Lorissa’s terrific interview with me by clicking here.
photo credit: Andrea Thompson. Snapped in Boro Park, February, 2008
