I find real stories to be fascinating, I like fiction too, a lot, it can be a way of escape for me. But I prefer to write of my real life, good and bad. And I love to read other's real life stories. In the movie Pretty Woman, a guy is walking around saying that everyone has a story to tell, what's your story? he asks. I think we all have a story to tell, and I believe it's beneficial for people to get their stories out there, it could help them in a lot of ways, and it can help others reading it too. It's so relieving to feel and to know that you're not the only one going through what ever you may be going through. Just knowing others are going through the same thing that you are going through helps you feel not so alone.
I was agoraphobic for about three years, I took a self help course at home to get through severe anxiety and panic that lead me eventually to being agoraphobic. The woman that was giving the course had once been agoraphobic as well. She said that she wrote a book, and that it helped her so much and she recommends everyone write a book.
(Agoraphobic, also called a shut in, is nothing more than the fear of having a panic attack in front of others or in public, so you don't go out in public) that's the basics of it, but mentally, it's so painful, no matter how hard I tried, just to step foot out of my home, I'd start shaking very hard. I would try walking to the mail box and start uncontrollably shaking. I still do have some anxiety and sometimes it leads to panic, but I am not agoraphobic any more.
One of the things that I find fascinating is that someone could be writing or telling of their experiences about the same subject that another is writing about and the two stories can come out so completely different. Each one experiences it differently than the other. My two granddaughter's who are best friends, went to the Butterfly Wonderland. When they came over to my home, they both told me about their experience. Although they did both see huge moths and butterflies and a vast amount of them, they could have been at two very different places. One child talked extensively of the the rain forest and colorful flowers and thousands of beautiful, colorful butterflies, how they would even land on you. The other child talked about the stingray aquarium and the beehive and the ant farm. I had to look it up on the internet when they left because I wanted to see for myself. I hadn't heard that there were anything but butterflies, I had no idea there really is a stingray and fish aquarium and there really is an ant farm and bee hive at the Butterfly Wonderland. I sat there smiling, realizing, that that is probably why when I talk to my ex-husband, we both have two very different views of what happened on one of our vacation's when we were married, we were both there, but my experience was quite different than his.
