Our Fictitious Self

If you were in high school around the early 2000’s you likely recall a popular literary genre about drug addiction and mental illness.  You may recall engaging in books like Crank by Ellen Hopkins, Go Ask Alice by Beatrice Sparks, Cut by Patricia McCormick, and even the movie Thirteen directed by Catherine Hardwicke.

In 2003 A Million Little Pieces, by James Frey came out. I was drawn to its iconic cover, a sky-blue background displaying a partially suspended human hand, dipped uniformly in multicolored nonpareils. The photograph was appealing without being disturbing, yet something felt unnatural about it.

The book was a memoir of a drug addict and his heroic road to recovery. The story seized me instantly. Within the first five pages Frey had me so engulfed in his trauma-soaked world it was as though I was gazing through a Meta Quest headset. His visuals of active drug use and graphic feuds were so grotesque, you could smell and sense the air around him. I felt like I was following him through ill lit crack houses at night and sitting beside the gallon of gasoline his face was buried in.

Frey demonstrated a unique ability to set a scene while simultaneously toggling the reader between the past and the present, the idea that someone could prevail through such atrocity was gripping. I would often reflect on his story, connecting my irrational teenage emotions and scenarios to his. Through his writing Frey became more than a drug addict, he was a valiant figure. His writing allowed you to romanticize his story so much it was no longer a tale of overcoming drug addiction; it was a heroic voyage of integrity.

Although my teenage situations were nothing short of minor inconveniences evoking irrational responses and emotions, I found clarity and perspective through his writing. He left me with a sense of empowerment.

Frey became an instant sensation across the country. He captured the hearts of individuals throughout the globe in search of inspiration and hope. He was #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and made several appearances on Oprah.

But in 2006, my senior year of high school, The Smoking gun began a quest to discredit many of the key details that made Frey such a hero. They debunked many details of his past events that set his book apart from the typical storyline. They revealed the disillusionment of key characters that were pivotal in shaping Frey’s recovery journey.  

As the narrative evolved across the internet, Frey’s story was found to be almost a complete fabrication. He would eventually confess his distortion to the public.

Although portions of his story were false, I will never discredit the truth and hardship of overcoming drug addiction.            

I was devastated, I felt like a piece of my reality had been burned away. James Frey’s entire world was created in my mind. I had irrationally connected parts of his story to pieces of my life that no longer made sense. I attempted to return to the book and read it for the fifth time, but I could barely get through the first chapter. The writing felt repetitive and empty, I suddenly became exhausted by the story. My love for James Frey had repositioned itself into apathy, he was merely a good writer with a troubling past.

I spent a little time listening to interviews and reading articles, trying to discover the rationale behind his story. Some of his justifications felt forced, however I did find one key concept that resonated with me, the development of his fictitious self.

Several quotes have led me to believe that Frey had taken the platform of his life and developed this somewhat fictitious self. He glamorized his story by morphing his character into a protagonist that was stronger and more aggressive. A man that navigated with more discretion and maintained an element of integrity while still resisting governance.

I imagine him starting out embellishing a few details, fabricating a few characters, and setting a picturesque scene to ensure the reader could fully grasp the horrors of the scenario.  I visualize him starting to accidentally form a character. Recalling live events in his mind and then slowly morphing the story into who and what he wanted to be. He handled situations in his writing the way he imagined a more superior human would do. By the end he had developed a cast of confounding individuals folded into a detailed, elaborate story line with a light foundation of accurate events.

Despite my years of frustration with Frey, I can grip the idea of creating an extreme image of yourself. We create perceptions of how we want to navigate through life and how we want others to view us. Often depicting ourselves as braver, prettier,

smarter, and more astute than our true character.

Now I understand the fictitious self could easily go in the other direction where we are internally self-deprecating. But my connection to Frey is that of glamorization.

This made me reflect on my own fictitious self, and who that person would be if they were released from the confines of my mind. We create these illusions, develop characteristics we wish we had, body images we long for, and an internal fortitude that matches all of life’s most challenging scenarios.  

And when we can’t glamorize our character, we dramatize the scene. The other person was ‘yelling’, we drank the entire handle, there were 100 people in the room instead of the actual 20. All of this to justify how we reacted or how we overcame some sort of adversity that maybe never even existed.

I’ve been trying to meet my fictitious self, but with her flawless change agility, she easily gravitates into different personas.  She’s completely confident yet vulnerable and able to exist in a productive space with everyone around her. She’s poised and collected, her tone consistent regardless of external pressures.  She always listens and pauses in thought before responding. After careful consideration she asks several riveting questions that lead to some perfectly calculated answer. She always stays humble and never attempts to be intimidating.  

In reality, I am vulnerable at the most inopportune times. I struggle to listen before vomiting out what I want to say, consistently cutting others off and talking over them.  I typically end up being incorrect with my responses because I didn’t take a minute to gather all the information. My team looks at me in frustration and once I shut my mouth, I am delivered the perfect answer.

This character in my mind is so real at times, and she evolves when I’m about to face a challenge or have just encountered one. It’s like when you retell a story and you claim to say things you thought about but didn’t actually leave your lips. Sometimes I find myself asking people, ‘did you actually say that?’ only to find out they didn’t. Their fictitious self would have, but their true character couldn’t or actively chose not to.

If I took a challenging scene in my life and rewrote it with every powerful thing I wanted to say and then adapted the characters around me to react in a way that positioned me in the utmost heroic light, reality would quickly start to evaporate. This is where I imagine Frey became lost in the person he wanted to be and adapted the scenarios into tragedies this individual could easily overcome.

I think about myself and how often during the day I lean into this character, or project her as true. Does this character push me forward or pull me back? Is there value to imagining the person you want to be and then striving toward that goal?

Or does spending too much time with this individual lead to a situation where you are convincing an entire nation that this person exists? I can appreciate that I am not the only one with this personal heroine existing in my space. And being cognizant of that idea has helped me to realize when I am leaning too much into that character and not leaning on my true self.  

Again, at the age of 36, I find myself irrationally connecting my simple life to James Frey and his dramatic chain of events. Maybe the real lesson is in the power that writers have over our minds and how we perceive our lives and those around us. How their words influence and survive even after betrayal, confusion, and heartbreak.