First and foremost answer the question why you want to write your memoir. What is driving your need to write? The memoir you are writing is your story, unique to you. Pack your fear of honesty at the door and answer why this story is important to you. The truth frees you to be who you are honestly -- as a person.

Resiliency is the ability to recover -- in other words, to return to a prior state of health. That's great, but what if you start life at such a deficit that you never had that state of wellness to begin with? If your life then slides even further downhill as an adult, the best you can hope for under the terms of resiliency is to return to your previous condition.

Canada was once known for its humane and ethical prison system, but with the Harper government's policy to make prison more punitive and less rehabilitative, conditions inside became more dangerous for both inmates and staff, and most of the programs that provided support and training for inmates were cut.

I have spent over 14 years hiding this "tiny" part of my life, and it is now, only after writing my memoir, that I've realized that by hiding, I've been chipping away at my heart. I decided that I didn't want to hide anymore. I realized in that moment that I should have SHARED my pain instead of hiding.

Writing a memoir has forced me to expose all the areas of my life that are painful, humiliating, embarrassing that I had chosen to keep hidden from the world. I've had to acknowledge the areas of my life that I was ashamed of and realize the many (many!) mistakes I've made along the way.

Little by little, I was feeling better, more able to get out of bed, more in control of my own emotions. I was, quite literally, drawing myself out of depression -- the deepest depression I've ever known. With these drawings, I was trying to make sense of how to live with cancer, but I was also trying to work out how to go on living with joy, wonder, and especially hope.