About Marianne…
I am absolutely thrilled to be able to bring you this interview with Marriane Dissard, author of unflinching memoir, ‘‘Not Me’
This will be published in paperback, audiobook and ebook on the 15th October 2019 ,accompanied by live dates (see Marianne’s website link below for more details).
ARTS
Why did you decide to write this book?
Performing, writing, declaring my flamme are all things, to me, worth living for but they require at an early stage of the process a giant leap of faith on my part. Singing? I never thought I could or would sing. That day back in 2004—I remember the light, and looking out the double-hung window of my Tucson house toward the desert—, I felt chills down my spine as I realized that, without any question, I wanted to be a singer. Where did that come from? The thought—and the certainty with which I embraced it—surprised me but I knew myself enough to understand that the decision was terminal. Hence the chills, which I used as a yardstick in the following years to explore who I might be or become, daring myself in the process as an adventurer out to explore the unchartered territories of the self. The book? Of course, I was scared when I realized I had to tell the story I’d kept hidden for so many years. There was no backing down. You have to face the music at some point.
What have you learned writing the book?
I decided the best way to proceed was to keep a journal of that one year in Paris. The entries would form the basis of a book about my very secret disordered life. I learned to write while writing ‘Not Me’ and I learned that you have to speak up if you want to heal. No addict—and eating disorders are addictions—gets better on his or her own. We need a community, friends, a support system. Connections—being seen and heard, being recognized and allowed to take one’s place within a community of people— matter enormously to our wellbeing. We are social animals. It took me a while to find the right balance for myself. When I moved on from journaling to actually mapping and writing the book, I found that I needed to be quite isolated. However, still battling my self-harming habits, I couldn’t get better if I was too isolated. It was looking for my balance in this new life as a writer. It’s only when I moved to the harbour town of Ramsgate and found the community and supportive friendships I needed that I was able to take the final steps in my recovery… and finish the book.
Was it easy to write?
I had an obligation to write and an obligation to ‘surmount the repulsive’, as that famous Vienna addict once said about the analytical process. I wouldn’t say it was easy to write this book. I’d only ever written lyrics before, and a bit of poetry—I ‘started’ as a ‘poet’ in my pre-teens—but for the particular story I set
out to share, I couldn’t get in the way of myself. I had to be perfectly understood, to fumigate the obsfucating habits of the song lyricist.
I had never been interested in writing short stories or fiction, content with writing lyrics, but I had written documentary scripts back in my filmmaking days. Film scripts and song are similar beasts, neither an end in itself. Not only are lyrics meaningless without music—and their performing—but they require a level of impressionistic haziness to achieve their effects. With a book however, I soon discovered that I had to write with precision—I couldn’t hand out the clay to the next person to finish the vase—, reacquaint myself with the rules of grammar I can so recklessly forego when writing lyrics.
Another important point is that most of my creative writing to this point was in French. My first three albums are written in French. This book is not. I pushed back the limits of my bilingualism but I don’t think I could have written it in French either—nor do I want to translate it myself now. Again, I had to be direct, I couldn’t—and didn’t want to—hide any longer.
Do you think that living a rock’n’roll lifestyle impacted your health?
If by rock’n’roll lifestyle, you mean the life of the traveling saleswoman, yes, that lifestyle has impacted my health. As far as sex and drugs, there was never enough of it to impact my health—and none of the latter as I did little to no drinking from early on in my touring career, and don’t even smoke pot. My life as a touring, self-managing musician was one of little sleep and much angst. The timing of my first album release also coïncided with my divorce. Running away from Tucson to tour the world, I was left with little emotionnal support from a disintegrating network of hometown friends and with no close companionship to balance out the isolation of life on the road. Although liberating and empowering at first, being noticed and noted early on as a performer didn’t entirely fill in that gaping hole in my stomach.
There’s a lot of secrecy surrounding addiction and mental illness. Why have you chosen to speak out?
I chose to speak out for my own sake, first, but also because I learned (maybe when I became a yoga teacher) that I enjoy helping others. There is an abundance of books and information about addiction and mental illness if you choose to look for it. There is also a great deal of resistance to hearing about it. The two things are not unrelated.
How did yoga help your recovery?
Yoga was my one health-affirming practice. I started practicing at the time I decided to become a singer—supposedly, to learn to breathe, and sing, better. Yoga was ‘home’ to me through a separation and divorce, and through this dramatic refashioning of myself into a hard-working and in-demand—it’s all relative—artist. Once I decided to
Was it cathartic or beneficial writing about your bulimia?
It is highly beneficial to reveal oneself but, to quote a Serge Gainsbourg song, ‘il faut savoir s’étendre sans se répandre’ (you must know how to spill the beans without spilling over). Maybe the act of writing itself—whether about bulimia or anything else—taught me a form of discipline of thought which carried over into a discipline of life.
My review of the book will be out closer to the publication date, but I would genuinely urge anyone interested in the mental and physical balance of health, recovery from addictions and sheer human existence in the public eye, to seek this memoir out. It’s something special.
In the meantime, follow Marianne at the links below to see where she is going to be launching her book, and where to buy both it, and her music.
Links-https://www.mariannedissard.com/
Twitter @mariannedissard
@andsoshethinks
Author
bridgeman.lenny@gmail.com