Mine is not as drastic as family, but my college roommate spoiled a lot of my college experience and I haven't been able to scrap that year. She was a pathological liar and a thief. But, I realized that even though the memories are tainted for me, I still wanted those moments in my life documented. I had a good venting session and let out some of my anger and such. Then I scrapped a few of those photos. Like, my first time going to Disneyland. Yes, there are other feelings that I have about that trip, but I try to focus on the good parts of it. And keep the bad and annoyances to one page that may or may not be added in print. I don't mind telling stories about bad times, but I don't want my whole college experience journaling to be "Roommate sucked and was doing this", if that makes sense. I have found space has given me the ability to do so. And I know not everyone is the same, but I was listening to a paper scrapper, Shimelle, who is pretty open that her childhood was fairly traumatizing. And she talked about how this is a part of her story, but it doesn't define her story completely, so this is how she focused on the parts she wants to tell and remember. Ali Edwards, a paper scrapper, also was very open about her divorce and how she scrapped that, her reasons why, and how it fit into her life. I think finding scrappers telling hard stories helped me feel like I had permission to tell the story in my own way.
The gallery always sparks my story telling when I go through it. 
