I want it both ways

Notes on criticism, contradiction and true compassion

So I wrote a book. A memoir called Totally Fine (and other lies I’ve told myself). It tells the story of my boyfriend’s suicide when we were both twenty-year-old university students and the decade of grief that followed, which was a time when I was pretending to be ‘totally fine’ - hence the title. 

My book isn’t a diary and my memoir isn’t therapy: my b…