Writing

“It’s so funny to me when people defend their destructive narratives,” writes an author who goes by Isabel Unraveled. “Like ok, you can keep those if you want I guess.”

The language of “destructive narratives” is a staple of online self-help, wellness blogs, mental health influencers and, I’m sure, some people who actually know what they’re talking about. These are, the explanation goes, internal stories we tell ourselves to explain the course of our lives, which become toxic when they get in the way of making better decisions. You adopt the narrative, it distorts your perception, you make poor decisions, the consequences reinforce the narrative, etc.

Isabel is a wellness influencer – maybe she would prefer a different descriptor, but I think it fits – and sometimes uses the phrase in this sense, but she makes it clear in other places that she considers it just as applicable to fictional narratives.

“Write books that give people hope,” she writes. “Not depression and nihilism.”

This thesis – that the narrative and the psychological are one and the same – is nowhere better stated than when she writes, “I’m strongly against people writing devastating books that then get loads of critical acclaim… if you can produce “great writing” maybe don’t install harmful mind viruses into everyone who picks up your book.”
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