Fame and fortune

[ailbhe]

I was asked to do an interview about traumatic birth for a freelance magazine-not-newspaper journalist, and I agreed on condition she questioned me in email not over the phone, and she did, and that's fine. Now I've been asked to do an interview for a company that are making a documentary for Channel 4.

I can't do it. I hate phonecalls. I have no desire to be on television. I don't want my name on television. I want to be my own editor, dammit, and I don't want to do it in an oral / aural medium. I can't put myself across like that - it doesn't work.

But undoubtedly my birth would have been easier to live with had I know that traumatic birth leading to PTSD was one of the possibilities. So if I did the interview, other people's lives might be easier.

But I have surgery on Tuesday. I haven't had a single appointment with a psychologist yet. I am squishing tears out of my eyes so that I can see to type this, because I feel so guilty about it - but it's much too early. I need to be a lot closer to well, physically and psychologically, before I can undertake anything as stressful as actual publicity.

And for this, I really do need to be my own editor.

Perhaps they could interview someone to speak on my behalf. Would that fill the same moral purpose?

I don't know. I've told them that I can't make any decisions until at least the week beginning 20 December. It's all too fragile now.

What should I do? (in the spirit of tossing a coin to see whether I'm disappointed when it lands).

Comments

[firecat]

If it were me, given the stress you're under, I would say no unless they can do it exactly the way you want them to. The fact that you had a traumatic birth experience does not morally obligate you to be an educator about it even when it's a bad time for you. There will be other opportunities to educate people about it.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Yes, absolutely. I agree.

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

And so do I. Whole-heartedly.