Connection to Memior

David’s memoir speaks a lot to the struggles of his life and his views and emotions of what his past was for himself. Family dysfunction is the basis around what he strings his story together with; leaving him with a lot of emotional burdens to carry on throughout his life. I myself came from a very loving family growing up and had a strong connection with both my mother and father, leaving me with some disconnect to his story in regards to time frame. But later on when I was finishing graduating high school is when my family took a turn for the worse and my parents began to really struggle with their marriage. I had grown up with little understanding of how to deal with family dysfunction because things had always come easy for us it seemed. But when my parents began to drift apart and refused to do anything about it, which was when I first felt a sense of being disconnected. They stopped talking and eventually only communicated to one another through my brother or myself. It wasn't easy being a messenger, especially when the message was something a child should never hear one parent say to another, let along be the one to deliver it. It’s currently been 7 years since this all began and I have to say the battle is still waging on. 

At first my family played its roles; we all went to family functions and smiled and laughed and made it seem like nothing was amiss. But pent up emotion took its toll on us all and eventually the reality of our situation began to creep though. David's family created an image of the ideal, and played that off well for a while just like my family. Yet, after time cracks in the lies began to reveal themselves and show what was really brooding underneath. David’s family took a turn for the worse and so has mine. He was able to deal with his emotions and kind of almost organize them by retelling his story. I'm currently dealing with mine because my families battle is (fingers crossed) coming to its end. Years of dysfunction have taken their toll and I understand the feeling of losing something that held such importance to me; being left to deal with my emotions alone. It gives me hope to realize that there are more people out there with similar situations and that they have found a way to overcome the battle scars; that we shouldn't hide from what we've gone through or live as if that’s all that we can be seen as. We can allow people to understand that part of our lives may not be pretty, but they will never define us.

The video link below is a girl showing how she portrays herself even though behind the scenes of what people witness, there is a lot more going on that she is dealing with.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dB3chibPz8Y