Do you feel normal now? is the question I get most often from my readers. Almost, I say. Nearly normal.
After book tours and readings (and even a Tedx talk) in the wake of her bestselling memoir North of Normal, Cea Sunrise Person realised that her story was really connecting with readers; and especially with those readers who had survived challenging childhoods of their own. This realisation sparked Person to write a supplementary memoir, this time including the most painful stories from her past that she had omitted or only briefly referenced the first time around; Nearly Normal is meant to fill in the whole story of Person’s stranger-than-fiction life, and as supplementary material, I found it to be, once again, fascinating and thoughtful (I don’t know if it would stand on its own, and don’t think it should be read as a standalone). A had a few quibbles with the writing this time, but will happily round up to four stars again.
The hardest things to write about were the times in my life I felt I didn’t matter, that I wasn’t heard by my family, that I wasn’t allowed to feel shame or modesty or have an opinion that differed from my freedom-obsessed family. Trying to navigate my way through the minefield of Person beliefs — homeopathy, astrology, health food, artificial mood enhancers, freedom, nonconformity — and non-beliefs — religion, politics, consumerism, attachment, guilt, regret, expectation, obligation, education, authority, government, discipline — had left me with little room to form my own opinions other than “whatever’s the opposite of theirs.”
Nearly Normal doesn’t go deeply into the details of Person’s unconventional wilderness childhood (that’s in the first book), but she does add in some shocking stories of abuses she suffered (committed by non-family members, but tied to the neglectful environment she was raised in), she goes into the details of her two failed marriages and successful modelling career, and she outlines her inspiration for and process of writing her first memoir, along with the roadblocks she faced to having it published. The narrative jumps between these three timelines expertly, converging on her life in the present: happily married, with three healthy children, and a successful writing career; “nearly” normal, at last. This is an inspirational story of survival and I can appreciate how other survivors of abusive childhoods could find real value in reading Person’s additional unvarnished truths.
Despite the madness of my early years, there was no doubt that I’d learned some unique and valuable lessons. And if I were to acknowledge that my family had put me in danger because they were too selfish or lazy or crazy to care, it seemed even more important to me that I find the positive in those experiences. So maybe it all evened out. Maybe in some weird way, all the hardship had set me up to be the pattern-breaker of dysfunction in my family. Because I knew that those who continued their family’s patterns of destruction not only hurt themselves but also admitted defeat to those who had damaged them, intentionally or not.
Perhaps the most interesting thing that Person shared this time is her doctor’s suspicion that her mother, aunts, and uncle all suffered from Fragile X Syndrome — each had mental challenges that ranged from mild cognitive impairment (Cea’s mother) to bipolar (an aunt) to schizophrenia (her institutionalised uncle) — likely, according to the doctor, exacerbated by early and prolonged marijuana use. Cea herself tested negative for the genetic disorder in adulthood (and her children also appear unaffected), and as she also takes after her father in appearance (and apparently in intellect, temperament, and mannerisms, despite not knowing him until adulthood), she makes the provocative statement that she believes a person’s character is fixed at birth “and that environment had little to do with the person we ultimately become.” Adding, “Maybe the reason I’d endured so much as a child had less to do with creating my personality than creating my life’s purpose,” with her life’s purpose being the writing of her story “as though someone else’s life depended upon it”. That’s a provocative conclusion to have ended on, and I’m still mulling it over; happy to have read this, happy to have been provoked.
