Bonnie Armstrong
An Apparently Normal Person
August 22, 2024
4 PM PDT | 5 PM MDT | 6 PM CDT | 7 PM EDT
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In 2002, after six years of escalating and debilitating physical symptoms and zillions of tests, my neurologist finally declared there was no medical explanation for what was happening. We need to look for a psychological cause, she said as she turned my case over to a psychologist. That’s when I began keeping daily journals, which eventually made writing a memoir of my healing journey possible.

The good news is that I went from needing a wheelchair to hiking at Machu Picchu in less than five years.  I also began learning about my dissociative disorder and met the internal community of dissociated identities (also called alters) who had held the secrets of my childhood and helped me live my apparently normal life.

A decade and many more learning and healing adventures later, we wrote the first draft of the whole story as we understood it then. I thought it might help people with undiagnosable health issues or other impacts of childhood trauma. Little did I know that creating a publishable memoir would deepen my healing and become an adjunct to my therapy. It took seven years and I am grateful for every step.

For example, learning how to write by showing rather than telling about my journey paralleled my work in therapy.  I had to learn to feel feelings that had been hidden for so long I didn’t know they were there. Being pushed to write using the five senses required me to feel things I’d never felt before.  We also hit points where writing had to be paused as we bumped into, and needed to negotiate, internal taboos about what could be included.

I’m glad I came to publishing at a time when there are so many options to consider. I chose a hybrid publisher mainly so I/we could maintain control over how the story is told and sold.  Our partnership with Emerald Lake Books resulted in a book that has won three awards so far and received excellent reviews.

What I hope you’ll take away from our chat:

• The synergy between the craft of writing and the art of healing. Editors and therapists are essential parts of the journey.

• Making meaning out of the events in our story is as important as the engaging prose we use to describe the events.

• How the “MeToo” movement transformed the courageous individual act of breaking the silence and speaking our truths into an act of solidarity.

• Why writing a memoir is first about our own healing, and then about helping others heal.
• What it’s like to write a memoir with an internal committee.

Bio
Bonnie Armstrong spent decades as an apparently normal person unaware of the complex dissociated infrastructure that hid much of her childhood and supported her from within.  Bonnie enjoyed her life as wife, mother, community activist and a 40-year career that included high-level positions in two Governors’ offices. She served as an expert consultant on child and family policy issues with federal, state, county and local governments, as an elected School Board member, appointed commissioner on multiple commissions, a non-profit board member, and a national speaker and trainer.

After a major health crisis in her 50s, Bonnie discovered her dissociative disorder, her strong internal community of alters, and the secrets of her childhood. She left her career in 2012 to focus on healing, learning and advocating about childhood trauma and post-trauma growth, and writing and speaking about dissociation and her healing quest for renewal of body, mind and spirit. Bonnie and about a dozen alters now live together peacefully, focused on their joint life’s purpose: to break generational cycles of abuse and create a more loving, harmonious world. Their award-winning memoir, An Apparently Normal Person: From Medical Mystery to Dissociative Superpower was published by Emerald Lake Books in 2024. Bonnie holds a master’s degree in human development and is a certified Life Coach.