Do you remember what you thought and felt as a teen? We tend remember our past in wide swaths, or generalized impressions, punctuated by intense memories that adrenaline burned into crystalline vision.

If you kept a journal of this time, you can just open the book and relive these, sometimes mortifying, moments. If you didn’t, you can just attend a Mortified event and have your adolescent memory jogged by others’ mortifying experiences!

Mortified is a worldwide storytelling event where adults tell stories about their lives by sharing their most mortifying childhood artifacts (diaries, letters, lyrics, poems, home movies)… in front of total strangers.

This past November 5th, I had the extreme honor of being chosen to bare my soul in pubescent prose in a room full of friends and stranger - though, after the raw reveal of reading my childhood diary pages, the supportive strangers truly felt like friends I just hadn’t met yet.

One of the surprising and delightful things I learned in preparing for this evening, was that I confronted mortification head on and instead felt respect, some amusement, lots of self-compassion and gratitude for that 80’s teen. In fact, I liked her better now than I ever did then.

So, maybe Mortified’s now a misnomer. Maybe mortified is a better way to describe how I would’ve felt if I had to read my journal in front of real live strangers 30 years ago. From where I sit today, I thank this kid for laying the foundation for who I am today and helping me survive with a sense of humor and my integrity (mostly) intact.

The event was a blast (I laughed at my cast members’ stories til my stomach hurt) and cathartic too. The connection I felt from the crowd helped heal the loneliness of that disconnected, confused, and often insecure kid, who was unsure how the world would perceive me if I dared to be myself - if I could even figure out who that was.

Mortified has live events every other month in Brooklyn and satellites around the world. They also have a podcast and six-episode miniseries. Go to https://getmortified.com/live/ for an event near you and you have journals or earnest letters from that time and want to feel the love yourself, contact a Mortified producer today!