Non-identity accounts: Personal myths,cultural scripts and narrative alignment

Personal myths and central themes

The two most common topics in the data were romantic relationships and employment histories. This was despite our efforts to encourage pluralistic interpretations of ‘nothing’ in the Directive guidance brief. Perhaps the writers’ conservativism reflects a recourse to prevalent social scripts. Myth is a universal structure of human thought (Samuel & Thompson, 1990), but its particular expression is culturally specific. In western late modernity, the values of love and work translate into scripts about intimacy or power (McAdams, 1988, 1993). For example, Laura yearned for an idealised image of romance:

The thing that is missing from my life is love . . . it would be so nice to have someone to share those goals with to share dreams and to just do stuff with.

Similarly, Alicia drew upon dominant scripts about meritocratic educational achievement. Her personal myth negatively inverted the theme of power, emphasising feelings of frustration and dissatisfaction (McAdams, 1993) at her limited trajectory. Aligning herself with the neoliberal ideology implicit in the dominant discourse about education (Danvers, 2021), she assumed individual responsibility for her ‘failed’ non-progression:

By not going on to the next stage of my Art Education (equivalent to a BA degree today) I lost the momentum of my working life . . . if I had not taken a break from further art education when I was younger I might be a more established artist than I now am.

Some writers identified a significant turning point moment (Strauss, 1959) that created biographical disruption (Bury, 1982). Nuclear episodes (McAdams, 1993) stand out in perceptual awareness because they occur suddenly, dramatically and unexpectedly. Intimacy loss, such as the death of a significant other, may shatter the subject’s assumptive world (Kauffman, 2002) and radically change their perspective (Athens, 1995). For example, Helen described the impact of her father’s death in a motorcycle accident when she was three years old. She explains that this event profoundly changed her sense of self and temperament, as she became anxious and felt guilty. This was compounded by the verbal nothingness surrounding the tragedy, through family secrets and silence:

We didn’t talk about what had happened or why Daddy wasn’t coming home . . . I almost certainly assumed that this dreadful loss was all my fault . . . I changed ([my mother] says) from a sunny, happy child who was ‘always singing’ to a rather anxious, quiet child.

Negative nuclear episodes could have a generative power, catalysing storied action. For example, Molly described her mother’s death from cancer as an ‘explosive’ event, which marked the beginning of a tragic series of failure and loss. In her account, we see how she makes sense of this devastating life event by regarding it as the primary cause of other, subsequent and secondary negational experiences:

. . . it was a life changing trauma for which I had no ability to cope . . . it pretty much wiped out my exam results as well as starting a rapid downwards spiral in my mental health . . . it was like being taken off life support before I was able to breathe on my own. It was explosive and the shock wave of that explosion reverberated for 30 years.

I had been accepted as a cadet into the Metropolitan Police [but] when Mum died I could no longer face doing that, I lost all confidence in being able to go and was simply not capable, so my career path changed with immediate effect . . . [I] ended up just feeling stupid and life spiralled.

Such transformative experiences could affect writers’ sense of ontological self-identity and epistemological subjecthood. The death of a significant other (Mead, 1934) altered the person’s relational self through their apprehension of an absent, ‘no-body’ figure. For example, Delia believed that losing her brother had removed the key witness to her biographical history (Lloyd, 2023), erasing her connection to a shared past and its anchor points of knowledge. This created feelings of self-estrangement, doubt and uncertainty:

. . . he was my main companion throughout . . . and so without him I have no shared memories – I keep in touch with friends and cousins as they have little pieces of childhood but it is a little like losing childhood.

Turning points also served to demonstrate the narrator’s personal myth. Through a process of reification (Berger & Luckmann, 1966), constructed ideas that are rehearsed and retold often enough come to appear as external truths: permanent, fixed and stable. Vivid granular elements, anchored in the plot, solidify as foundational sediments (Spinelli, 2015) that seem to provide confirmatory evidence for the subject’s identity claims. One narrative device that may be used here is metonymy: the naming of specific objects or instances to represent a broader symbolic category. In tales of lost experience, the nuclear episode serves to epitomise a general pattern that the author wants to convey. For example, Kevin wrote about the onset of his deafness, attributing it to traumatic grief and a central theme of loss. Although the turning point event itself was sudden and unexpected, he believes that it exemplifies a long-enduring plotline:

When I was a child, my Dad, eldest half-brother, and Grandad all died within a short space of time and all died very suddenly with no warning. I held their losses within me and have carried that mourning with me ever since . . . When I lost my hearing in that partial way, so suddenly overnight, I felt it was a physical manifestation of the losses I had been carrying for so many years . . . Grief had found a way to physically represent itself within my body.

Finally, the unavailability of cultural scripts curtailed personal myths. Some participants wrote ruefully about lacking a coherent, articulate narrative with which to account for themselves (McAdams, 2006). Joseph wrote about feeling untethered, ‘chopping and changing and searching courses and trying to find meaningful work’. He concluded that, ‘the overall pattern is that I never stick to anything and I have not throughout my life’. According to the ‘psy’ discourses of therapy culture (Furedi, 2004), one ought to have a self-story and be emotionally literate; it is both a sign of authenticity and a moral imperative to responsibly ‘know thyself’ (Rose, 1989). Those who positioned themselves against that script suffered existential guilt (Rank, 1936), voicing concerns about wasted potential. For example, Jeremy said, ‘I don’t think I ever had any grand narrative to my life, there’s no arc to it, nothing building to achieve the life I have now.’ Martin considered himself to have failed to reach the myth of specialness (Yalom, 1980) that demands individual exceptionalism:

. . . where is the Great Achievement of my life? . . . I just wanted to feel, very strongly, that there’d been one great overarching purpose to my life, that had both justified it and made me stand out from the mass . . . the feeling of being just another human being, of no great significance, has brought on powerful feelings of guilt and made me depressed.

Sequential order and teleological reasoning

A second practice involved making connections between different negative events. Although we had asked participants only to write about one single ‘no-thing’, many mentioned several, spanning their life-course as a whole. The significance of the selected instance came from its contextual relevance and position in relation to other points on the biographical horizon. Here we see the meaning-making urge that characterises the narrativising tendency (Bruner, 1991). Attempting to find order in the chaotic contingency of unlived experience, writers detected patterns and arrangements that suggested causal logic. Psychotherapeutic scripts provided useful template forms, through concepts, models and theoretical explanations. As we shall see, these included ideas about attachment styles (Ainsworth, 1973) and the impact of absent, neglectful or emotionally unavailable parents upon early child development (Bowlby, 1979).

Some writers used sequentiality in an attempt to demonstrate that their intentions were reasonable, legitimate and communicatively rational (Crossley, 1998). A common technique was to cite ‘because-’ and ‘in-order-to’ motives (Schutz, 1972), implying that one event had logically led to another. When understood within a broader sociocultural landscape, such accounts could perform further identity work by relating private troubles to public issues (Mills, 1959). For example, Ruth believed that her school environment had caused her lack of self-confidence, which had in turn limited her career progression. She contextualised this within political debates about gender inequalities in the British education system:

I held back from pushing myself forward for further promotion as I never felt quite good enough. I’m convinced this is because of my upbringing and my Catholic secondary modern school, where we were made to feel that we ended up there because we failed, for whatever reason, to gain a place at a grammar school. I think that this was compounded by the content of the school curriculum, with the emphasis being on domestic science, needlecraft, religion, obedience and really the most basic teaching of science, maths and biology . . . this made me believe that I was stupid.

Other writers produced order through temporal patterns and sequences. Gazing along imaginary timelines, they identified moments that seemed autobiographically connected through semantic resonance. For example, Peter believed that his adult feelings of shame and low self-esteem had been caused by the absence of his father in early childhood. Drawing upon clinical scripts from psychoanalytic theory, he invoked the professional, authoritative ‘voice of medicine’ (Mishler, 1990) to make his story sound more credible (Potter, 1996). He indicates that it was through dialogue with his counsellor that he developed a clarifying insight into the true meaning of his mental health struggles:

My father left my mother when I was a toddler . . . My mother wasn’t able to show a lot of love and also felt inferior to those around us. As a consequence of this, I’ve always felt there was a ‘hole’ that the love of a father figure would fill. Possibly, if my mother had been stronger and more resilient, perhaps she could have made me feel as good as everyone else. But she wasn’t and didn’t and so I grew up with low self-esteem and feeling of shame . . .

. . . counselling identified the lack of a father as being key to the otherwise inexplicable anxiety and fear.

Chains of negative events could be presented in an iterative sequence. As we saw with Molly’s case (above), this might appear to have been catalysed by a nuclear episode. But even without such a clearly discernible trigger, frequency and proximity created the same effect. The sheer number of generated narrative points gave some sequences incremental power, with each instance adding confirmatory weight to an overall pattern. This created perceptual ‘comet tails’ (Husserl, 1913) that could be traced back and forth through time. For example, Melinda reasoned that,

Because of my relationship with my parents, I have had a fear of success that has impacted on my academic achievements and until recently, my career. I have not had friendships and romantic relationships like other people. I sought out boyfriends who treated me badly, because I was so scared of love and intimacy.

Plotlines could extend in both directions from the narrator’s current standpoint. Usually, stories were told retroactively, beginning in the present and moving back into the past. This afforded the writer a hindsight perspective (Freeman, 2010), which created teleological meaning (Brockmeier, 2000). From this retrospective viewpoint, the causal sequence now seemed obvious, as if it were an essential truth that had been there all along (Tversky & Kahneman, 1973). For example, Bernie wrote about his feelings of inferiority, which he traced back to his relationship with his father. Once again, we see the influence of psychotherapeutic discourse in providing template scripts, as Bernie refers to Rogers’ (1961) notion of unconditional positive regard as an explanatory concept, while acknowledging its popularisation:

The realization that I was afraid of male disapproval crystallized over several months, and I saw that it was traceable to my father’s attitude, whose love for me did not feel, as people who trade in clichés now like to say, unconditional, but was instead contingent on measuring up to his ideas of appropriate masculine interests and behaviour . . . Once I understood the mechanics of my fear, and traced it back to its source and set about dismantling it, I had a tool or weapon with which to meet those feelings when they reoccurred.

Occasionally, stories were told prospectively, oriented to the future with a progressive momentum. Projecting themselves ahead from their current position, narrators referred to the life projects (Sartre, 1943) they might once have pursued that had now been halted or foreclosed. This led to the perception of impossible selves (cf. Markus & Nurius, 1986), or alternate non-selves (Scott, 2019), whose potential would never be realised. For example, Clara’s tale of non-motherhood conveyed a wistful tone of forward nostalgia (Wilson, 2015) for the scenes that she would never see and roles that she would never play:

I’ll never pose for a graduation photo while my child throws their mortarboard into the air. I’ll never be mother of the bride or groom. I’ll never bore people with photos of my grandchildren. If my husband predeceases me, there will be no children to console me or arrange the funeral.

Different people’s stories appeared intertextually. As Stanley (1993) argues, life-writing is a relational activity, intertwining narrative threads in an auto/biographical weave. This style was apparent in some genealogical accounts of family history, as participants identified patterns of relationships that endured over time (Jacobs, 2017). Some fatalistically perceived a legacy of mistakes and failures that were perpetually handed on (Orbach, 1994). Therapeutic discourse helped these writers to perform their emotional selves (Lupton, 1998), as they peppered their tales with clinical terms such as ‘attachment styles’, ‘unmet needs’ and ‘good enough parenting’. Meryl went as far as to infer transgenerational trauma (Herman, 2015) in her account of what she called ‘inherited loss’. That is, she drew relational connections between the negational experiences that had occurred across different generations in her family:

I learned that my [paternal] grandfather had suffered a breakdown after the loss of his wife . . . My maternal grandfather never recovered psychologically from the utter shock of losing his wife and younger daughter in a flu epidemic in 1929 . . . My mother was only five at the time and I think she survived this trauma by living her life inside some kind of protective shell which at times prevented her from showing emotion and closeness towards her own children . . . I didn’t know either grandmother, yet feelings of what might have been are still tucked safely away in the back of my mind.

Moral claims and emotional tones

The participants’ accounts showed an awareness of the normative context surrounding their negational episode: rules, codes and conventions, and broader cultural scripts. Some people referred to these factors explicitly, taking a critical and challenging view of what they perceived to be cultural pressures. Others showed more tacit recognition of the wider storied landscape, acknowledging how their private trouble was also a public issue (Mills, 1959). Many stories involved relative positioning and social comparison, as narrators described not doing, having or being something that the generalised other (Mead, 1934) would experience. Almost by definition, these narratives of nothing were framed as accounts of deviance, which attempted to explain, defend or justify the absence of ‘something’ usually expected. Writers discursively positioned themselves in relation to dominant, preferred scripts by claiming stances of (mis)alignment. For example, Frederick described his experiences as a gay man:

It is the loss of life milestones that you may never fulfil – marriage and having kids chief among them . . . This perceived failure to hit the socially acceptable markers [means I have] a complete lack of identifiable anchors to grip on to which measures one’s worth . . . To me, I live a fulfilling and very rich life, but to others, I am a black hole hanging in space, and just as unfathomable . . . I am seen to be not playing the game . . . I am a nothing because I do not play by the heteronormative rules.

Framing their stories as normative or transgressive allowed the writers to communicate a deeper message about their social and moral status. The performance of dismay and recalcitrance conveys a plea for forgiveness and continued belonging (Goffman, 1956), in contrast to the defiant or resistant stance of oppositional outsiders (Becker, 1963). This can be dramaturgically significant, in creating a role distance (Goffman, 1961) between the character presented in the story and the authorial self underneath. As Goffman explains, role distance serves as a symbolic apology for a situated occasion of deviance, thus aligning the actor with their audience’s values. Conversely, actors may embrace their role (Goffman, 1959), rejecting the normative judgement. For example, Belinda discussed the stigma of single womanhood, criticising a hegemonic script about passive waiting and time-wasting (Lahad, 2016). Her account reveals how these feelings of difference and otherness emerged through social interaction and relationships:

On the one hand, I often feel deeply lonely and envious of my friends who are already married or in long term relationships. I am aware that we still live in a society where monogamous relationships are preferred and are expected to lead to marriage . . . Yet at the same time I feel angry that those who choose not to get married suffer financially and socially, often seen as unique or different . . .

I often feel like a third wheel when I am around [my married friends], and I am constantly asked about my love life or my desire for a partner. I also feel that there is a social hierarchy in which married people are seen to be one step further on the path of life . . . For a single person who is struggling financially, it can be difficult not to get frustrated by this and feel alienated . . . There is also an increased sense that ‘time is running out’ somehow, as if everyone is frantically partnering up and you will be the last one left.

The emotional tone of these stories was further shaped by affective scripts (Tomkins, 1962). When accounting for how they felt about their episode of nothing, participants showed an awareness of the cultural display rules (Hochschild, 1983) governing emotion talk. They took up (mis)aligned positions in response to scripts they perceived about how one ‘should’ or would normally feel. This indicates the self-reflexive dialogue between the ‘I’ and ‘Me’ (Mead, 1934), as subjects take an objectified view of themselves and imagine social judgements. As Cooley (1902/1992) argued, such reflected appraisals evoke evaluative self-feelings, including pride or shame. These are counterfactual emotions, occurring in response to comparisons between actual and alternative realities (Markman et al., 1993): the normatively scripted life one could have led versus the transgressive life-as-lived (Bruner, 1987).

Many participants engaged in upward counterfactual thinking, imagining their unlived life to have been expected, desired and preferable, and therefore their actual path to be relatively deficient. Unsurprisingly, these stories were infused with negative counterfactual emotions, such as sadness, regret, envy, shame, guilt and disappointment. Here, writers performed aligning actions by endorsing the normative values embedded in the cultural script from which they agreed they had deviated (Stokes & Hewitt, 1976). Thus, although the negational act was transgressively misaligned with social standards, their role-distant response was compliant.

Regret was by far the most commonly reported feeling, perhaps reflecting the pervasive availability of the ‘road not taken’ trope. Participants’ stories fitted easily into this cultural template, which smoothed them into tellable forms. Consequently, we received a lot of ‘sad tales’ (Goffman, 1961) about perceived social failure, displaying an appropriately melancholy tone of regret. For example, Ann chastised herself for a missed opportunity and sounded reflectively wistful:

I still regret listening to my sister, by being naive, losing the chance to join the Wrens . . . I had hoped to train as an officer. I may have travelled to many far-flung countries, I would have met many new people. Perhaps even ended up living overseas.

Robin wrote about his experiences as an asexual young man, recognising how he deviated from cultural scripts about preferred masculinities (Connell, 1995). Taking the view of the generalised other (Mead, 1934), he regarded his lack of sexual experience as a problematic failure to reach normatively prescribed cultural milestones. He aligned himself with these perceived standards by expressing internalised shame, alongside more private emotional pain:

It hurts quite a lot for a number of reasons, mainly because it feels like an experience I should’ve had . . . having sex especially is a really scary thing and something I’d need a lot of preparation for. It feels like something big to overcome and until I do, I feel pretty immature, young and insignificant because having sex and a relationship is the crux of life, right? . . . I’d say it has had some lasting impacts because the longer it goes on, the worse it becomes for me and my future relationship prospects so it hurts immensely.

Less often, participants showed downward counterfactual thinking, imagining the alternative, unlived life to be worse than the one that they had actualised. With some acts of commission, the intentional decision not to do something had fortuitously helped to avoid an unwanted outcome. These stories conveyed positive counterfactual emotions, such as pride, relief, happiness and gratitude. Their meaning could be framed within an existentialist ethic of freedom, choice and personal responsibility (Sartre, 1943). Through an internal dialogue, subjects appraised the moral values of different perspectives and positioned themselves in alignment with one part. For example, with the benefit of hindsight wisdom (Freeman, 2010), Dorothy expressed relief at having ended her wedding engagement. Regarding it as a ‘lucky escape’ from a life that (she now realises) she would not have wanted, she time-travels back to chastise her former self:

I know now that it would have been a terrible decision and a terrible marriage. I was so naïve and I honestly can’t believe that I am the same person I was then. It turned out to be such a lucky escape for me . . . I feel extremely concerned and embarrassed that I nearly went through with it. I am so disappointed in my younger self!

Some of these writers proudly (re)claimed the moral space surrounding their no-thing. Their discursive position was doubly misaligned, transgressing both the original cultural script and the emotional script for its repair (Hochschild, 1983). Unapologetic and defiant, they refused to provide justificatory accounts that conceded normative judgements or cited the vocabulary of motives. Indeed, their tone could be triumphant, celebrating the courage of non-conformity. They took a principled stance in defence of their choice, framing it within a discourse of identity politics. This was important when an individual’s experience resonated with the wider, collective story of a deviant, stigmatised or minority group (Plummer, 2019).

For example, some women accounted for being ‘childfree-by-choice’, a contentious decision in a pro-natalist culture (Blackstone, 2019). The status of non-motherhood is often disenfranchised (Letherby, 2002) and attempts to tell these stories fall upon deaf ears. Ciara described the social reactions she had encountered for her script transgression: ‘other people make my childless life feel invalid. . . “Selfish” is a word that comes up a lot’, and Rachel recalled, ‘being told by others that I would change my mind. . . I have always felt this patronising and somewhat belittling’. Finding an alternative tale and a space in which to tell it offered recognition and bore witness to an intentional non-experience. Thus, these writers positioned their stories in conscious misalignment with the dominant script:

It was something when I was growing up I always assumed I would do . . . The problem was I didn’t really like children and wasn’t interested in raising them . . . Occasionally I would feel lured by the fantasy of the romantic side of it, wondering what they would look like and what names we would choose. Then the practical side would take over and I would think of disturbed nights, dirty nappies, childhood illnesses and throwing up . . . I had a very negative view of becoming parents and I felt that we would be expected to conform to be traditional. (Hayley)