51 pages • 1 hour read
Paris HiltonParis: The Memoir
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Blessings and Hardships of ADHD
Content Warning: The source material and this guide include references to alcohol and drug use, as well as sexual, physical, verbal, and emotional abuse, including the sexual abuse of minors by adults. The book references PTSD and ADHD. Mentions of suicide, possible attempted suicides, and self-harm and self-medication are also included.
Hilton has ADHD and she believes that this diagnosis explains a lot of her behavior and difficulties. It also explains many of her strengths. She believes that ADHD held her back in some ways because it was not fully understood when she was younger, but she also believes that it can be an advantage in life when it is understood and dealt with properly. This is a theme that is consistently pulled through the entire memoir, both in the content itself and in her particular way of relaying the content.
As a child, no one really understood Hilton’s ADHD. Her brain constantly sought out stimulation, and the way she found this stimulation was through partying. She did not drink or use drugs when she was younger, but she would frequently sneak out of her home to go to clubs so she could listen to the music and be stimulated by the lights. Many neurodiverse people will medicate themselves if they are not taught how to manage in a neurotypical world with their differences. This is what Hilton does as she seeks out the massive sensual stimuli of nightclubs. While this makes her brain feel good, it gets her into a lot of trouble because she sneaks out of the house often. She is also reprimanded at school frequently and is told that she is not living up to her potential or putting in the effort she should be. Unfortunately, her schools were not set up to accommodate or notice her needs, and as such, she did not thrive in those environments. She was frequently kicked out of schools.
Now as an adult, Hilton embraces her ADHD. She has found a doctor and a treatment that helps her, and she does not shy away from how it inspires her. For example, from the beginning of her book, she states that she will jump from one topic to the next because that is the way her brain works. This is, indeed, how her book is set up. She believes her ADHD is responsible for her creativity, and her understanding of her own mind is part of her liberation from her trauma.
ADHD made Hilton feel like she was not good enough for much of her younger life. She has decided that she does not want other kids to feel like that. Therefore, she insists on telling the children in her life how they are fine just the way they are. This is one way that Hilton has taken the difficulties that ADHD has brought her and turned them into a blessing for both her and for others.
Taking Responsibility for One’s Actions
At one point in her memoir, Hilton relays the advice she was given by Elliot Mintz. In a discussion of multiple well-known figures who acted without integrity, Elliot tells Hilton that it is important to own up to one’s mistakes and not try to deny them. This is advice she agrees with, and most of her memoir is a testament to this.
Early on in her story, Hilton discusses her parents’ decision to have her sent to camps or schools for emotionally and behaviorally troubled teenagers. Her feelings about this are complicated, but she admits that the actions she took when she was younger were harmful to her parents, and she apologizes that they were ever put in a position where sending her away seemed like the best thing to do. She acknowledges how awful it must feel to not know where your teenager is and that this must have caused her parents significant pain. She does not take credit for acts that are not her own, such as the abuse she received in the schools, but she acknowledges that her actions hurt those who love her.
Later on, she shows remorse for leaving her friend Mouse in a Denny’s. She does this because she knows she must leave town in order to avoid being sent back to the schools, but she cannot take Mouse with her. She tries to help the girl by leaving her all her money, but looking back on it as an adult, she acknowledges that she left Mouse in a lion’s den of sorts. She appears to believe that the girl might have been better off having never left the school. While Hilton took Mouse to help her, she knows that her fate may have been far worse than had she stayed, having been abandoned. Hilton did not need to acknowledge this situation in her memoir, and the fact that she did and that she apologizes to Mouse for it should the woman be reading the memoir, shows that Hilton takes seriously the need to own up to her mistakes.
She further demonstrates that she believes it is best to face improprieties head on when she goes back to her home after having been arrested for a DUI charge, and she faces the paparazzi she knows will be there. She could have stayed at someone else’s house, but Elliot always believes that it is better not to push things off and that if she goes to her home, she will demonstrate that she is not drunk. Again, she does not try to explain away what she did, but she faces the consequences of her actions. In her memoir, she acknowledges that while she was feeling sober, she was legally drunk. She goes on to say that she did drive drunk in the past. She tries to own up to her mistakes and apologize when necessary rather than trying to hide from them or run away from them.
The Importance of Placing Blame Where It Is Deserved
Hilton maintains throughout her memoir that the responsibility for assaults and abuse needs to be placed on the perpetrator rather than on the survivor. One of the first instances where Hilton is sexually manipulated or assaulted is when she is courted and then kissed by an adult teacher as a teenager. At the time, Hilton likes the attention from the man who many of the girls at the school find attractive. She sneaks out to kiss him when he finds out that her parents are not home, and then when her parents catch them, he tries to blame her. She says that she is faced with two decisions: accept that she had been manipulated or believe that she is irresistible. At the time, she chooses the latter because the former is too painful. As an adult, however, she understands that the man was a predator and that she is a survivor. She refuses to accept shame, as an adult, for what happened to her at the hands of an adult man.
She further places the blame of abuse on abusers rather than on herself after her time in the residential schools. At first, she is ashamed, particularly by the sexual abuse she endures. She is strip searched and has a cavity search in front of people many times. She is forced to go into Obs naked. She is digitally raped in Provo numerous times. At first, having to shower naked with adults watching and making lewd comments upsets Hilton, but eventually she becomes numb to it. While she believes she is targeted at times because of her beauty, particularly with the digital rapes, she comes to an understanding that the abuse was not about what she looked like or about what she did. It was about people trying to make themselves feel powerful over teenage girls. They were attempting to show her that they could control her body, and she could not stop it.
When Hilton makes such revelations, she demonstrates an understanding that the shame for assaults of all kinds, especially sexual assaults, lie with the perpetrators rather than with the survivors. Still, she grapples with the complicated decisions survivors of abuse must make, especially after Harvey Weinstein hits on her and pursues her against her will. She did not tell anybody at the time because that is how people often dealt with such things during those years; people kept quiet about it. She understands, though, that had she said something, someone else may not have been hurt afterward. She believes that this is true, but she also understands that this is part of blaming the survivor. Sexual assaults can be complicated, and she has complicated feelings after her numerous assaults. She does not try to bury one truth for the advancement of another. She grapples with complexities while remaining steadfastly committed, throughout her memoir, to the truth that the guilt lies with the assailant not with the survivor. Numerous times in her story, she is victimized and feels powerless. In openly discussing her own traumatic past, she comes to terms with her reality and takes back ownership of herself and her experiences.
