What is *Notes to Self* by Emilie Pine about?

*Notes to Self* is a collection of raw, autobiographical essays exploring trauma, resilience, and womanhood. Emilie Pine confronts topics like infertility, parental alcoholism, sexual assault, and societal taboos around female pain with unflinching honesty. Structured as six deeply personal narratives, the book challenges societal silence around women’s struggles while celebrating survival and self-reclamation.

Who should read *Notes to Self*?

This book resonates with readers interested in feminist memoirs, trauma narratives, or transformative personal essays. It’s particularly valuable for those grappling with infertility, addiction in families, or sexual violence, offering solidarity through Pine’s vulnerability. Fans of Lena Dunham’s confessional style or Anne Enright’s emotional depth will appreciate its unapologetic voice.

Is *Notes to Self* worth reading?

Yes—it’s praised as “devastating, poignant, and wise” (*Sunday Independent*) and “an unforgettable exploration of what it feels like to be alive” (Lena Dunham). While some find its rawness confronting, critics highlight its power to validate readers’ own unspoken experiences.

What are the main themes in *Notes to Self*?

Key themes include: - **Silence vs. truth-telling**: Rebelling against societal pressure to hide pain - **Female bodily autonomy**: Addressing menstruation, infertility, and sexual violence - **Intergenerational trauma**: Navigating parental alcoholism and fractured family dynamics - **Self-destruction and recovery**: Chronicling eating disorders, self-harm, and healing

How does Emilie Pine address feminism in *Notes to Self*?

Pine frames personal struggles as political acts, dissecting how society polices women’s bodies and emotions. Essays like “Notes on Bleeding and Other Crimes” reframe menstruation as a feminist issue, while her account of sexual assault critiques victim-blaming culture.

What critical praise has *Notes to Self* received?

Notable acclaim includes: - “A screaming treatise on making your own rules” – Lena Dunham - “Harrowing, clear-eyed…priority reading” – *Sunday Business Post* - “Agonizing, uncompromising, starkly brilliant” – *Financial Times*

What controversies surround *Notes to Self*?

Some readers criticize its intensity, calling it “self-indulgent” for focusing on non-extreme trauma. Others argue its specificity paradoxically universalizes women’s pain, creating both intimacy and emotional distance.

How does *Notes to Self* compare to other feminist memoirs?

Unlike chronological memoirs, Pine’s essay format allows fractured, thematically linked storytelling. It shares the vulnerability of Roxane Gay’s *Hunger* but emphasizes Irish societal contexts, blending personal narrative with cultural critique.

Notes to Self

Emilie Pine

4.1(20053 Reviews)

Overview of Notes to Self

In "Notes to Self," Emilie Pine shatters taboos with raw honesty about infertility, addiction, and female pain. This Irish #1 bestseller sparked cultural conversations on vulnerability and silence-breaking. What uncomfortable truth might you finally feel brave enough to confront?

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Chapter 1

When Silence Breaks: The Power of Personal Truth

In a world that often demands our silence, Emilie Pine's "Notes to Self" arrived like a thunderclap during Ireland's abortion referendum, capturing a cultural moment when women's voices were finally breaking through centuries of enforced quiet. This collection of raw, unflinching essays became an unexpected phenomenon, with luminaries like Lena Dunham comparing Pine to "your best friend-if your best friend was so sharp she drew blood." What began as private notes hidden in a drawer transformed into a work that resonated so deeply that Anne Enright warned readers not to read it in public "because it will make you cry." Through Pine's unflinching examination of alcoholism, infertility, sexual violence, and academic burnout, she articulates experiences many have felt but few have named, creating what the Financial Times called "agonizing... uncompromising... starkly brilliant" work that makes readers feel less alone in their own bodies and lives.

Chapter 2

The Burden of Loving an Alcoholic

When my father began vomiting blood from his alcohol-damaged esophagus, I hesitated before helping him. That moment of hesitation revealed the complicated truth about loving an addict-it's exhausting, disappointing, and often thankless work. In Corfu General Hospital, my sister and I discovered the grim reality: without family present, patients die. The hospital was severely understaffed, with no doctors after 2 PM and only one nurse per ward after 5 PM. We cleaned our father's soiled body, changed his sheets using linens scavenged from empty beds, and watched nurses handle blood transfusions without gloves until we offered our own supply. My relationship with my father had always been complicated. He taught me the alphabet backward as a child, making me perform this trick for his drunk friends. His parenting was unconventional at best-sending me to find other children to feed me at the beach, abandoning us in pubs when angry, calling me creative insults. When he moved to Greece, I recognized the irony that usually children, not parents, leave for new lives elsewhere. He deliberately chose an island difficult to reach much of the year, seeming happiest far from his family. After multiple hospitalizations, Dad finally stabilized enough to return to Greece, desperate to be among his books and away from doctors-and daughters. When his health collapsed again, I barely recognized his emaciated body with its grotesquely distended abdomen. Twelve liters of fluid were drained from his abdomen, and though the consultant placed him on a transplant list, Dad flatly refused, saying he'd rather die. A year after Dad's hemorrhage, his liver functions improved enough to remove him from the transplant list. When I asked about his experience, I was shocked to discover he misremembered everything-claiming he was never in pain when he had roared in agony, forgetting our sacrifices and constant care. Our memories diverged completely-mine filled with hospital vigils and the constant tension of waiting for doctors, while his sanitized the experience. Four years later, when Dad published an article about his alcoholism, I felt both proud and angry-proud of his honesty in declaring "I am an alcoholic," but angry that he remained "totally impenitent" about his drinking life and failed to acknowledge the damage done to our family. Despite our differences, we maintain a fragile peace. Sometimes when he calls, I'm busy and snap at him; other times, I'm just grateful to hear his voice. And every time he calls, my heart races.

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Chapter 3

The Grief of Unfulfilled Motherhood

For years I agonized over whether I wanted children, weighing freedom against love, watching friends become parents with both exhaustion and profound connection. After seeing a friend's child seek comfort from her mother, I realized I wanted that love. My partner R was hesitant until one evening when, seeing my sadness, he agreed to try. The process became clinical-monitoring cervical mucus consistency, using ovulation test kits, and scheduling intimacy, all while feeling increasingly self-conscious about my body's functions. After over a year of trying to conceive, I finally got pregnant. R and I were overjoyed-he even suggested the baby take my last name. We put a deposit on a family home, but soon I noticed daily bleeding. Despite reassurances from medical staff, I obsessively researched online, caught between hope and fear. After multiple scans, we discovered there was no heartbeat, but due to Ireland's constitutional restrictions, the midwives refused to confirm the miscarriage, leaving us in cruel limbo. We paid for a private scan where an English midwife carefully implied what she legally couldn't state: at ten weeks, a fetus without a heartbeat won't develop one. After the miscarriage, my body felt different; my once-regular periods became rare and scanty, making me feel internally aged with a "broken, failed uterus." Desperate, I tried acupuncture for ten weeks and massive doses of spirulina, but saw no improvement. The acupuncturist implied I was "unbalanced"-too much yang, not enough yin. In my sleepless nights, I realized I was trying to be cured of being me. The pain of infertility was compounded when my sister V announced her pregnancy. I reacted badly, feeling cheated. That Christmas, when V was nearly nine months pregnant, I hosted the family gathering. Then on December 30th, I was called to the hospital where I found V sobbing-her daughter's heart had stopped. Two days later, on New Year's Day, Elena Jane was born stillborn. We held her perfect, impossibly still body, warm from her mother's body. At Elena's funeral, V's straight shoulders were the most heroic thing I'd ever seen. Eventually, after further fertility investigations revealed my depleted egg reserve, R and I had a crucial conversation where he expressed his unhappiness with the process. We decided to pause trying, abandoning fertility schedules and planned IVF. The relief was immediate-we slept better, fought less, reconnected. Though I still grieve sometimes, especially seeing men holding babies, I chose happiness over the monthly cycle of trying and failing, finding joy in being an aunt to my nephew and growing old with R.

Chapter 4

The Silent Language of Family Fracture

My parents separated when I was five, my sister just a baby. I remember them as happy once-birthdays, hide-and-seek, shared adventures. Then came winter, fighting, a hot water bottle thrown against the wall. When they split, I cheered: "no more fighting." Our new life meant damp walls, credit at the local shop, weekend visits with Dad who made toasted sandwiches on a machine you had to stand on. After my parents split, they initially maintained a civil relationship. Then my father stopped speaking to my mother, and I became their go-between. I arranged visits, delivered letters, and shouldered impossible burdens-like the night my ten-year-old self received my father's suicide threat by phone. Without divorce being legal in Ireland, our family existed in limbo. We had no legal protections, no regular child maintenance. My mother supported us alone while my father spent his money on drinking. At eighteen, I voted in my first referendum-on legalizing divorce in Ireland. The bill passed by just 9,114 votes, allowing divorce after three years of separation. My parents had been separated fifteen years by then. That spring, I was moved to tears by a travel agent's sign: "Package Holiday Deal: 1 Parent + 2 Kids." For the first time, I saw my family reflected publicly. We existed. In my mid-twenties, my father asked me to ask my mother for a divorce. When I relayed the question, Mom joked she was "still hoping for reconciliation." Though I told Dad she would grant the divorce, nothing happened-his engagement ended, he moved to Greece, and the divorce slipped everyone's mind. Years later, when Mom's solicitor worried about property claims, I helped Dad sign a new separation agreement. At the time of writing, they remain married-qualifying for twelve divorces. After thirty years of silence, my parents finally spoke again in January 2013, brought together by the death of my sister's baby daughter. For my sister, who'd been a baby when they split, seeing her parents talk for the first time was revolutionary. Mom later revealed they discussed Dad's liver failure, a mutual friend's death, and even a miscarriage they'd never spoken about before. Though they now speak regularly and even meet for coffee, I'm surprised by my anger at this new parental status quo-confused, relieved, but also resentful that their decades of silence could simply end without anyone ever apologizing to me or my sister.

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Chapter 5

Blood and Taboo: The Female Body Speaks

The male-centric metaphor of "bleeding onto the page" for good writing contrasts sharply with my actual experience of menstrual blood that society demands be hidden and contained. I was mortified getting my first period during geography class when a friend pointed out blood on my dress and chair. In the girls' toilets, I wadded toilet paper to protect myself, later shoplifting tampons rather than discussing it with my mother. At twelve, I felt betrayed by my body and dreaded the lifetime of bleeding ahead. The term "feminine hygiene" frames menstrual blood as dirty, something to sanitize. Advertisements use blue liquid instead of showing actual blood, making our bodies' reality taboo. Even modern ads with their uplifting rock songs and smiling teenagers celebrating while menstruating still avoid showing blood. The feminist slogan that "a woman can do anything a man can do, and do it while bleeding" makes me laugh but also wonder-what if I can't? Sometimes my hormones leave me doubled over in pain, wanting only to return to bed. Blood becomes most taboo during sex. While some men desire menstrual sex, my experiences have been humiliating-like when a partner screamed upon seeing blood, or when another claimed to be "fine with it" but rushed to wash the sheets immediately after. As months of trying to conceive stretched into years, my period became a curse marking my infertility. I couldn't even say "I'm bleeding" to my boyfriend, instead channeling my grief into shopping sprees. Now I check my body with dread, hoping for blood that increasingly doesn't come. The gradual shift toward menopause in my late thirties signals my childbearing years ending-a greater loss because there was no actual childbearing, only miscarriage. My symptoms include orgasms that cause elephant-flooring cramps, less perky breasts, unpredictable temperature regulation, worse PMS, days of despair, and rare, unpredictable bleeding. When a friend called us "middle-aged," I resisted fiercely-perhaps because if getting my period meant "becoming a woman," its end feels like the end of womanhood itself. I'm questioning what part of me is constituted by my body. Women are trapped in rituals of bodily self-appraisal, constantly comparing ourselves to others with a negative internal cheerleader telling us our bodies aren't acceptable. Getting truly naked means not just removing clothes but reversing the dialogue that my body is a source of grief. If my body could tell its own story, it would speak of blood's flow and ebb, of touch and pleasure, of illness and recovery, of joy and transformation. It would sound strong, loud, and proud. And I am finally listening.

Chapter 6

The Dissociation of Adolescent Survival

"I'm not here." This is what I'm thinking as his hands are on me, his hands and his mouth and the rest of him, all telling me that he wants to be inside me. I'm not here. Because I shouldn't be here. I'm only sixteen, my mum doesn't know where I am, it's a school night, I should be tucked up in my own bed, not being fucked on someone else's. After my parents separated, we had very little money, a fact I was constantly aware of. At ten years old, I discovered the power of not eating. I refused the free school sandwiches, then my packed lunch, satisfying myself with just an apple before stopping that too. I found I had a talent for hunger. Not eating made me feel clean, light and powerful. Though I stayed thin and got sick often, I maintained this secret control, eating just one meal daily. By thirteen, I'd finally found friends who seemed to like me, though my thinness remained my most valued attribute. I discovered new ways to use my body, learning that boys' attention could give me that same feeling of triumph I'd found through not eating. I craved affection but settled for physical encounters, afraid of being labeled "frigid" while desperately wanting to be touched with kindness. When I was fourteen, my mum's job took us to London where I became the audacious girl in lipstick and short skirts, lying about my age to get into clubs. I partied with music promoters, drank neat vodka, and smoked high-tar cigarettes. Despite my recklessness, I maintained boundaries-no crack or heroin-believing this would keep me safe. Yet danger followed: aggressive men, head injuries from violence, chronic undernourishment, and dangerous encounters with predatory drivers. I spent nights at nightclubs, going home with strangers after drinking until I could barely stand. During these encounters, I mentally repeated "I am not here," separating body from self. I thought I was trading my body advantageously, but I was really assigning myself no value at all. Though I maintained a happy facade, I became emotionally cold and distant, developing an internal fault-finding dialogue that still keeps me awake at night. At fourteen, a man sexually harassed me on the Tube while I cried openly, yet no adults intervened. By eighteen, I'd heard that one in four women would be raped, but didn't count myself among them until age thirty-nine when I finally recognized two experiences as rape. The first was by a boyfriend who forced himself on me despite my protests, his hand on my throat. The second was by an older man who pinned me down at a friend's flat. When I asked the second man why he'd done it, he said "It's just something about you, a vibe you give off"-a damaging explanation I internalized for decades before realizing the "vibe" was simply being young, vulnerable and female. Despite my damage, I made it through school and earned a place at an Irish university where I finally felt at home. College gave me control over my life, which helped ease my eating disorder. Learning about sexual pleasure in my twenties was revolutionary; discovering that sex could be fun transformed my relationship with my body. Only in my thirties did I fully embrace the radical notion of physical pleasure and agency, finally able to say "I am very much here" instead of my former mantra of absence.

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Chapter 7

Academia's Hidden Costs: Gender, Power, and Burnout

As a child without friends or a bicycle, I convinced myself I preferred walking and staying home reading. In my thirties, living alone in a new country, I finally attempted to learn. After days of practicing balance on a pedal-less bike, I experienced the exhilarating sensation of flying. This accomplishment left me wondering why I'd been so frightened and why I couldn't "just let go" more often in life. As a university lecturer, I aspire to create safe spaces where students can take intellectual risks. I worry particularly about female students who remain silent in class despite having brilliant ideas in private conversations. This silence stems from societal conditioning-girls taught they're not good enough to be heard. I experienced this myself: at twelve, discovering a school where girls took home economics while boys got extra math, and later losing 1% on exams to male classmates for no apparent reason. Working in a male-dominated academic field, I've experienced casual sexism despite avoiding overt discrimination. I've been talked over, shouted at in meetings, and called a "feminazi" by a photographer who expected me to pose cozily with male colleagues. When men tell me I "look young," they strip away my professional experience under the guise of complimenting me. After giving a lecture on women's testimonies about rape, a Faculty Chair commented on my appearance being at odds with my subject matter, calling me "cute." I've recently learned something surprising about myself: apparently, I lack empathy. The HR consultant explained I focus on solving problems rather than connecting emotionally. I realized I've internalized the idea that showing feelings at work is feminine and therefore weak. After my miscarriage, I didn't share my sadness with colleagues, instead maintaining a professional facade. I've come to see how my antipathy toward emotion reflects my own internalized sexism, despite my outward feminism. Like most women, I've always craved being likable-it's expected of us. Yet this desire holds us back professionally, as we take on pastoral care and paperwork while men advance by being "bold" and "uncompromising." Success increasingly means bringing in money. When I secured funding, I didn't realize I was taking on a second job managing a large project. I kept accumulating responsibilities-journal editorship, book contracts, conferences-smiling when people asked if I ever slept because this overwork looked like success. My breakdown started during conference season. At the airport, forgetting my jacket triggered a panic attack. I was exhausted but high on the hypomania of constant work, flying between countries giving lectures while finishing a funding application. After submitting it, I realized I was alone in the building, couldn't remember my last meal. The next evening, I crashed my car into a wall. My first thoughts were for my nephew and the damage-only later wondering if I was alright. I once took a "Mindfulness for Academics" course where twenty of us voiced the same complaint: our jobs are too stressful. In hindsight, we needed less work, not more mindfulness. We were cannibalizing ourselves-or the university was cannibalizing us. There's no mechanism to tell university leadership (mostly men) that employees need to slow down. After the crash, I created a new kind of to-do list-notes to self. I will value my ideas and feelings. Write daily. Teach passionately. Say "rape" aloud regardless of my attire. Call out misogyny. Fight internalized sexism. Be kind to colleagues whose struggles remain hidden. Eat proper meals (not at my desk). Pay attention to my middle-aged body. Spend time with loved ones. I'm afraid to write about vulnerability, breakdown, and depression-afraid it makes me seem weak, confirms I'm young, cute, and powerless. I'm afraid, but I'm doing it anyway.

Chapter 8

Breaking the Silence: From Private Pain to Public Voice

What began as private notes hidden in a drawer-Emilie Pine's attempt to process her contradictory feelings about her father's illness-evolved into something far more significant. When her partner discovered these pages and encouraged her to share them, Pine began writing about experiences she'd never shared before, painful to excavate but necessary to reclaim denied parts of herself. These raw, unfiltered thoughts became the foundation for "Notes to Self," a collection of essays that resonated deeply with readers who responded with their own stories of pain and vulnerability, creating an unexpected dialogue about shared human experiences. Pine's essays tackle subjects often shrouded in silence-alcoholism, infertility, sexual violence, family dysfunction, menstruation, and professional burnout. By breaking these silences, she demonstrates that vulnerability isn't weakness but strength. When she writes about her father's alcoholism, she's not just telling a personal story but illuminating the complex dynamics of loving an addict: the constant anxiety, the cycle of hope and disappointment, and the exhausting dance between enabling and tough love. When she details her miscarriage and fertility struggles, she's challenging the cultural taboo against discussing women's reproductive experiences, from the clinical sterility of IVF clinics to the profound loneliness of pregnancy loss. When she recounts her adolescent self-destructiveness, she's examining how young women learn to disconnect from their bodies as a survival mechanism, revealing the subtle ways society teaches girls to doubt and deny their own experiences. Throughout these essays, Pine shows how silence perpetuates suffering. The silence between her parents that lasted thirty years, creating a chasm that shaped their children's understanding of relationships. The silence around menstruation that makes women feel ashamed of natural bodily functions, forcing them to navigate professional spaces while hiding fundamental aspects of their existence. The silence that prevented her from recognizing sexual assault for what it was, illustrating how lacking the language to name our experiences can trap us in confusion and self-doubt. The silence in academic settings that allows sexism to flourish unchallenged, from subtle microaggressions to overt discrimination. What Pine ultimately offers isn't just her personal story but a masterclass in how writing can be an act of reclamation. "Breaking the silence isn't about bravery," she writes, "it's about what we choose to do with our vulnerability." Through these essays, she transforms private pain into public voice, isolation into connection, showing how personal narratives can become powerful tools for social change. She demonstrates that the very act of writing about our experiences can reshape them, turning moments of shame into sources of strength, and private struggles into bridges of understanding. What began as an attempt to make sense of her own life became a beacon for others, proving that our most personal stories often hold universal truths. We have so many stories to tell, and Pine shows us that in telling them, we not only free ourselves but create space for others to do the same.

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Key Themes in Notes to Self

intergenerational addiction
involuntary childlessness
female bodily autonomy
caregiver burnout
unspoken grief

Quotes from Notes to Self

I am trying to be brave.
loving an addict-it's exhausting, disappointing, and often thankless work.
I am an alcoholic.
I was trying to be cured of being me.
no more fighting.

Characters in Notes to Self

Emilie PineThe author and protagonist of the essays
Emilie's FatherAn alcoholic writer whose illness impacts his family
REmilie's partner who navigates infertility with her
VEmilie's sister who suffers a stillbirth
Elena JaneV's daughter who was born stillborn

About the Author

Emilie Pine is the award-winning author of Notes to Self and a professor of modern drama at University College Dublin.

Her bestselling essay collection, blending memoir and cultural critique, explores themes of feminism, trauma, infertility, and resilience through deeply personal narratives. A leading voice in Irish literature, Pine’s academic expertise in memory studies and theater informs her unflinching examination of societal taboos.

Her debut novel, Ruth & Pen (2022), was named one of The Guardian’s best debut novels, further cementing her reputation for emotional authenticity. As founding director of the Irish Memory Studies Research Network, Pine bridges scholarly rigor with accessible storytelling.

Notes to Self won the 2018 An Post Irish Book of the Year and became a cultural touchstone, praised for revolutionizing conversations about women’s private experiences.

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From Columbia University alumni built in San Francisco

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1,000,000+ curious minds.

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avg rating

1M+ learners

"Instead of endless scrolling, I just hit play on BeFreed. It saves me so much time."

@Moemenn

"I never knew where to start with nonfiction—BeFreed’s book lists turned into podcasts gave me a clear path."

@Chloe, Solo founder, LA

117

"Perfect balance between learning and entertainment. Finished ‘Thinking, Fast and Slow’ on my commute this week."

@Raaaaaachelw

"Crazy how much I learned while walking the dog. BeFreed = small habits → big gains."

@Matt, YC alum

108

"Reading used to feel like a chore. Now it’s just part of my lifestyle."

@Erin, Investment Banking Associate , NYC

254

"Feels effortless compared to reading. I’ve finished 6 books this month already."

@djmikemoore

"BeFreed turned my guilty doomscrolling into something that feels productive and inspiring."

@Pitiful

4.5K

"BeFreed turned my commute into learning time. 20-min podcasts are perfect for finishing books I never had time for."

@SofiaP

"BeFreed replaced my podcast queue. Imagine Spotify for books — that’s it. 🙌"

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Chapter 7

Notes to Self

OverviewOverview of Notes to Self

One book. Many ways to hear it.

When Silence Breaks: The Power of Personal Truth

The Burden of Loving an Alcoholic

See every word as you hear it

The Grief of Unfulfilled Motherhood

The Silent Language of Family Fracture

Get more out of Notes to Self

Blood and Taboo: The Female Body Speaks

The Dissociation of Adolescent Survival

See every word as you hear it

Academia's Hidden Costs: Gender, Power, and Burnout

Breaking the Silence: From Private Pain to Public Voice

You made it to the end of Notes to Self

Key Themes in Notes to Self

Quotes from Notes to Self

Characters in Notes to Self

About the Author

Download Summary of Notes to Self

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1,000,000+ curious minds.

1,000,000+ curious minds.

One book. Many ways to hear it.

When Silence Breaks: The Power of Personal Truth

The Burden of Loving an Alcoholic

See every word as you hear it

The Grief of Unfulfilled Motherhood

The Silent Language of Family Fracture

Get more out of Notes to Self

Blood and Taboo: The Female Body Speaks

The Dissociation of Adolescent Survival

See every word as you hear it

Academia's Hidden Costs: Gender, Power, and Burnout

Breaking the Silence: From Private Pain to Public Voice

You made it to the end of Notes to Self

Users also liked

Discover more

Overview of Notes to Self