Well, I certainly know your opinion on "personal" material, especially life stories. ;-)

In fact, I'm writing a story about it just to get other peoples' take on the matter.

I have to disagree that one can't learn anything from personal essays. We need to know, as human beings that others have been through situations and traumas that we've experienced and I believe that in reading how they've overcome such issues, IF they've overcome them, we can learn something.