Past Tense: Facing Family Secrets and Finding Myself in Therapy

Mardou (Sky in Stereo) documents her therapeutic treatment in this frank and clear-eyed memoir. In 2015, 40-year-old British expat Mardou’s seemingly contented life with her American husband and young daughter begins to unravel when she’s wracked by intense anxiety, accompanied by bouts of acne. Though initially skeptical of therapy (“I’m British. We don’t do therapy. We do sarcasm and alcoholism and football hooliganism”), she finds a skillful practitioner and begins to reconcile her suppressed memories of family traumas. These center on her complicated relationship with her Jehovah’s Witness mother, who was raped by a family member at age 13; her rageful father’s sexual abuse of her stepsister, Gail (for which he was imprisoned); and Gail’s abuse of Mardou, when they were both young girls. Working first through cognitive behavioral therapy and later with a therapist who specializes in the internal family systems method (where one talks to the “parts” they’ve developed “as coping strategies to get through life,” such as the “managers” who “protect our image” or the “firefighters” who “quash painful feelings via compulsions”), Mardou hopes to “break the line” of the “legacy burden” before it passes down to her daughter. Mardou convincingly charts her evolution from therapy cynic to take-charge advocate, and her sharply expressive graphics and neat lettering keep her text-heavy story fluid and immediate. The result is a potent testament to the power of reckoning with the past. Agent: Anjali Singh, Anjali Singh Agency (Oct.)