Mariel Hemingway’s tales of a troubled past

Mariel Hemingway, 53, actress and author of the recently released memoir, Out Came the Sun, says that her story of survival shows that there is hope and inspiration to be had.

Granddaughter of author Ernest Hemingway, Mariel grew up in Sun Valley.

In her deeply moving, searingly honest new memoir, the actress and mental health icon now shares the story of her troubled childhood in a famous family haunted by depression, alcoholism, illness, and suicide.

Looking back at these testing years, she recalls how the “drinking and craziness going on at home” and all “the fighting in the night” from her parents became her frame of reference for what was normal family life.

Her grandfather, Mariel says, probably would now be diagnosed as bipolar.

Lost in life, but never completely

When her mother got cancer when Hemingway was in her mid-teens, she decided she would sleep with her mother to take care of her.

“I actually believed I could help,” she says.

It is perhaps understandable why, as a successful young actress in Hollywood, she continued to carry an underlying sadness inside of her.

There was a persisting feeling that her past had to be deal twith in order to release the shining light of her true being.

A healing process

Writing her memoir, Mariel Hemingway says, was a way to separate past and present.

“We all have a story and when we do tell our story — we can find a place with people we trust. It’s the beginning of getting proper health,” she believes.

And these days, she has several efficient tools for nourishing her mind and body during the often gruelling book tours.

“I do Transcendental Meditation twice a day. I do yoga,” she says.

“Nature is this unspoken hero in our life that we don’t access enough.”

_{Source:
Connecticut Post}