Tommy Dorfman on Writing Her Debut Memoir (Exclusive)

Do any of us truly understand our past?

Tommy Dorfman went on an emotional journey while writing her debut memoir, Maybe This Will Save Me. The 33-year-old actress revisited traumas from her childhood and young adulthood to gain a better understanding of herself for her book – a majority of which takes place in those early years. 

“The book offered me a really beautiful exercise in reflection and self love and admiration for parts of myself that survived stuff that, at the time, didn’t feel like such a big deal,” she tells PEOPLE in an exclusive interview.

The memoir, which hits shelves on May 27 from Hanover Square Press, offers an exploration of Dorfman’s early years and breakthrough in Hollywood. The book dives into the actress’s gender and sexuality journey, as well as struggles with alcohol and drug addictions. She also reflects on landing a role in Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why and the dissolution of her first marriage.

“It was really nice to let go of a perception I had of myself that was negative,” the actress says. “Any shame that I was holding on to from childhood, teenage relationships and traumas that I experienced, and the more active years in my addiction and alcoholism.”

To unpack her past, Dorfman conducted thorough research. The process began around the time of her gender transition, which she writes in her book, began in the summer of 2020. During the five years it book for the book to come to fruition, the author visited several former acquaintances to gain a more well-rounded perspective of her early life.

“I talk about how memory is nonlinear and my book reflects that,” the author explains. “In searching and pulling these threads, I needed other people’s perspectives because I can’t always trust my own. I called old babysitters. I met up with old friends. I went down to Atlanta for a few weeks, where I grew up, and tried to see if anything in the city would spark a new memory for me.”

Dorfman also reached out to her parents, siblings, exes and old therapists for their perspectives. The process was crucial to her memoir, as she notes that memories are not always truthful. “It’s hard to separate feelings from the reality of something,” she says. “When you’re reflecting on a time in your life, you’re trying to put yourself there. And you’re thinking, ‘Well, what was I really feeling?’ I can only write from the perspective I’m in now for some of those situations and circumstances.”

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For example, she recalls an incident in which she had convinced herself that her brother had set her girls’ clothing on fire when she was a child. However, she was later told by her sibling that she was the one who did the deed. 

“I had rewritten a narrative,” Dorfman says, adding that her investigation also provided insight into the bullying she experienced as a kid. “It was like putting the pieces of the puzzle together.”

As for discussing her addiction, the actress says she “feels really comfortable talking about it on my own terms.” In the book, she describes herself as a “coke-monster tornado” from ages of 12-21, and details going to rehab in Long Island, N.Y.

While Dorfman has spoken about her struggles with addiction in the past, she has never gotten this candid before.

“Because a lot of my addiction and recovery happened before I was working in the industry, it just didn’t really come up,” she says. “I didn’t have any public struggles that I had to apologize for or explain myself. I started working when I was three or four years sober.”

Dorfman, currently 12 years sober, hopes that writing about her addiction can help others struggling with the disease. “It’s important to see people in recovery,” she says. “It is important to understand addiction and alcoholism as a disease, and it is important to acknowledge that it can happen at any age … I’ve done a lot of work on my addiction and recovery, and I don’t think I do anyone any favors by skirting around it.”

The author has held acting roles on screen and stage, and made her directorial debut with the film adaptation of Mason Deaver’s I Wish You the Best. The feature film had its world premiere at the 2024 South By Southwest Film Festival and is awaiting its wide release. 

Parts of her memoir, she says, are similar to a TV show she pitched in 2017.

“Right after 13 Reasons Why came out, I had an idea for my life as a teenage drug addict in Atlanta,” she explains. “It was a really raw, visceral exploration with a lot of rape, drug abuse and the chaos that ensued in my life as a teenager … I think there are bits and pieces of what would have gone into the TV show that ended up in my book today.”

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After pouring her heart out onto the page, Dorfman felt an array of conflicting emotions: feeling “deeply relieved, accomplished and comfortable, but also really uncomfortable and scared.”

“I think work should be that way for me,” she says. “If I feel too confident about something then I’m not sure, it was worth doing.”

Maybe This Will Save Me is out May 27 and available for preorder now, wherever books are sold.