On Writing Not Good Enough Girl: A Memoir of an Inconvenient Daughter

When my mother’s sixth husband died, I felt broadsided by the amount of guilt, anger, and disturbing childhood memories that arose, and I decided to return to therapy. When my new therapist asked what brought me to him, I didn’t mention my stepfather’s death. Instead, I burst into tears and said, “I don’t think my mother loves me.” The statement shocked me; I’d never acknowledged the possibility before. It caused a seismic shift in how I interpreted my past and the control and influence I’d allowed my mother to have over me. I wrote to better understand the events of my life and the choices I’d made.

I originally thought writing a memoir involved merely stringing together interesting stories of one’s life. God knows I had enough quirky stories to relate, and I’d read literally hundreds of memoirs. So, easy enough, right? But like the initial conversation with the therapist, what I thought the themes of my life were turned out to be much different. I decided to write Not Good Enough Girl: A Memoir of an Inconvenient Daughter using the backdrop of my mother’s eight marriages, and I employed a linear timeline. The memoir became more complex, however, as disturbing events surfaced, memories I’d never taken the time to dissect. Writing pinpointed the initial onset and subsequent timing of my stepfather’s physical and sexual abuse and changed the way I viewed my mother’s culpability. Writing revealed that my mother knew early on what kind of man my first stepfather was and what he was capable of.

I allowed the hurt to surface and began to process it. I wrestled with the god-awful realization that many of us face—that maybe some of the people we loved the most really didn’t love us back much. To be told “They loved you as much as they could” isn’t all that comforting. But the memoir revealed many truths, and I decided to accept these truths rather than continue contorting myself to believe lies. When you come out the other side of the mental and emotional processing a memoir requires, you find that those years of sifting through your past might be the best therapy you’ve ever received.

The memoir became a mirror, and far too many images were not at all pretty. I still cringe at the poor moral character I displayed. Throughout decades, there was fear, so much fear, which I tried to bury under more and more alcohol. I made numerous selfish and hurtful choices, not bothering to consider the effects on others. I sold myself short and allowed others to determine my value. I see that I brought my own full set of luggage packed with dysfunction. But through the process of writing, I now know that my mother struggled with emotional connection because her mother raised her without it. I see that my first stepfather employed rigid discipline and brutal physical punishment because his own father did. My second stepfather’s mother didn’t tell him she loved him until he was in his sixties, and only when he forced her to say it. I see how addictions and dysfunction spread like tendrils throughout our family, and I grieve for all the children that were hurt and the lives permanently altered by abuse.

I wish I’d asked so many of these people more questions before they died and their histories were lost forever. I wish they’d gotten help for themselves. Through attempting to better understand the key players in our stories, we might even be inclined to cut a few of them some slack. If even just a little. Maybe an iota. Maybe not.

My favorite saying has become “Speak the truth, even if your voice shakes.” No one can tell your story like you can. Think of all you’ll learn. Think of the people you might help—some may feel less alone in their struggle. You might even change a life.

Write!

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Sondra R. Brooks graduated from Interlochen Arts Academy as a ballet major, studied musical theatre at Carnegie Mellon University, and earned a Bachelor of Business Administration from University of Phoenix. She is a three-time award winner in the International Writers’ Digest Competition for her memoir/essays “Vincent,” “The Magic Tumor Theory,” and “Jimmy.” Brooks has served as judge in various writing competitions and is a member of Authors Guild of America, Story Circle Network, National Association of Memoir Writers, and North Carolina Writers Network. She lives in a log cabin in the woods with one cat and five rescue dogs. Her husband of seventeen years considers himself to be a rescue as well. She enjoys cycling, beekeeping, forest farming, organic gardening, and caring for her botanical sanctuary. She presently makes her home in Pittsboro, North Carolina.

Not Good Enough Girl: A Memoir of an Inconvenient Daughter

Amidst the control, confusion, and chaos caused by her eight-times-married mother, this author’s story spans the extreme emotions of a mother-daughter relationship, touching on cyclical family dysfunction, addiction, and forgiveness.

Beginning at the age of five, Sondra spends decades auditioning for the role of her authentic self. Her dazzling mother casts her as confidante and co-conspirator in her affairs and serial marriages. Sondra vacillates between fierce anger toward her mother—who does nothing to protect her from physical, sexual, and emotional abuse—and a desperate need for her love and approval.

As an adult, Sondra enters into and stays in a toxic marriage for years, engaging in affairs with married men rather than divorcing. When therapy and AA eventually propel her out of the sense-deadening haze of alcohol and cigarettes, she summons the courage to tell her husband she plans to leave him. He reacts by playing on her biggest fear, telling her, “You’re going to turn out just like your mother.”

Sondra attempts to establish a sober and separate identity, but tensions between her and her mother further increase when she marries someone new—a man who displaces her mother as the epicenter of her life—and her mother’s seventh marriage ends. During this time, traumatic childhood memories suddenly surface and a seismic shift occurs, freeing Sondra from her need for maternal connection. But establishing a life independent from her mother proves far more complicated than she could have imagined.