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Writing as a
Trauma Recovery Tool
When a trauma
is past, and the aftermath of legalities, therapy, and processing
is also past, the residue of the trauma may still remain, deeply
embedded in the survivor’s soul and psyche. Thoughts of the
trauma may still consume the survivor, seeping or rushing through
every waking moment. It may be a formless, heavy,
all-encompassing cloud of sadness, anger, anxiety, or misery—or
all of these. The survivor may be drowning in it, suffocating
from it, or unable to see beyond this overwhelming emotional
energy that hasn’t yet been released back to the universe. Its
iron grip may still hold the survivor captive, not allowing him
or her to fully move on. Consciously or unconsciously, the
survivor may be afraid to let the trauma go—afraid of what may
fill its place, afraid at some level of giving up the familiar,
or, oddly, afraid of forgetting it. Releasing emotional energy
appropriately is a normally positive act until one remembers that
there was nothing “normal” about the trauma. One way of beginning
to contain the uncontainable is to write the story down, letting
the chronological telling of the story take the writer through
the myriad of emotions that were experienced during and after the
trauma. I am not suggesting open-ended, free-form journaling.
What I am suggesting is that, in the act of writing about the
trauma, the survivor impose time limits, physical boundaries,
structural constraints, and the use of rewriting and editing as
desensitization and a way of ultimately gaining mastery over the
trauma.
Ernest Hemingway’s habit was to stop writing for the day when he
was writing well. The flowing energy then simmered and germinated
through the rest of the day and he started writing well again the
following day. I adopted this habit when I started Fish in a
Barrel: A True Story of Sexual Abuse in Therapy. Since I
worked at an office job four days a week at the time, I wrote all
day on Fridays until my children arrived home from school; then I
wrote from 4:00 a.m.
until 10:00 a.m. on Saturdays and Sundays while the children
slept in. Writing by the clock gives form to the formless. Having
to stop writing at a certain time, whether one is writing well or
not, can encourage one’s brain and subconscious to continue
working during non-writing hours. Taking brief notes of passing
thoughts or particular turns of phrase is helpful but there is no
sitting down at the computer and writing formally until the next
scheduled time. Over time, one’s entire being may conform to the
schedule, making the writing time intense, focused, and often
terribly painful. Ultimately, this may enable the survivor to
begin to have periods during non-writing times when the trauma is
not the overriding thought or emotion.
When a writing stint is finished, and the survivor has printed
the day’s pages or backed them up on a floppy disk or CD, a
second step is to lock the growing pile of pages and the
corresponding notes and disks in a file cabinet, away from
curious eyes and, indeed, the survivor’s own eyes, until it is
time to write again. The story is safe—it is all remembered and
documented—but it is put away. This is a way to begin to
physically place boundaries around the story of the trauma. It is
literally encapsulated in the file cabinet, on the pages, and on
the disk. The survivor can gain distance from the trauma as he
or she goes about the day while the trauma is boxed up and
contained. Eventually, this can become true figuratively, as
well. As time passes, and more of the story is poured out onto
paper—however rough the first draft is—and then locked away, the
survivor may begin to feel purged of the trauma and may begin to
experience a growing sense of inner peace.
Aside from time and space, during the actual writing I found it
critical to work from a good outline. Adhering to the outline
gives structure and form to the content of the traumatic story.
In creating the outline, one can see where the natural breaks
were in the experience of the trauma, and these may become
natural chapter breaks. Chapters are further delineations of
boundaries around the trauma and its aftermath—dealing with small
pieces at a time—and can make re-experiencing it through writing
more bearable and progressively less agonizing. A good outline
will also help the survivor continue to move through the story.
As each footstep moves one further along a path, so does each
outline heading and subheading, each chapter and, indeed, each
sentence, move one through the story. As opposed to a
never-ending, unfocused, stream-of-consciousness journal, the
story will eventually end…when there is nothing more for the
survivor to write. The survivor will know when it is time to end
the story and write the final sentence—it will be when the story
is outside the survivor instead of inside.
Finally, a survivor may find that, once he or she turns to
reviewing, rewriting, and editing the first draft of his or her
story, perhaps with the vague idea of eventually pursuing
publication, there may be a resurgence of the traumatic feelings
of anxiety, anger, sadness, fear, or misery. However, rereading
the story, reworking it, adding, deleting, and editing in the
face of feelings of revictimization can give the survivor further
mastery over his or her trauma. During some writing times, a
survivor may deal with powerful feelings or new insights, and the
words may flow faster than one’s fingers can fly over the
keyboard. At other times, he or she may barely manage to search
for spelling errors and misplaced commas; that is still progress.
Each successive rewrite or edit can effectively reduce the power
of the trauma until, hopefully, at some point, instead of writing
about the terrible event that happened, the survivor is working
on his or her BOOK.
These small ideas for time constraints, literal containment,
structure in writing, and editing as desensitization can be a way
to begin to overcome trauma and its often equally painful
aftermath. I used to live inside my trauma; it consumed me. I
ate, slept, and breathed it. Now, after writing Fish in a
Barrel over the past few years—by writing on a schedule,
locking it away after writing, following my outline, and using
rewriting and editing to desensitize myself further—I live
outside my trauma. It doesn’t control me anymore. It now stays
between the covers of the book it became—the story of sexual
abuse by a therapist—which is my message of hope to other
victims, my warning to helping professionals about the possible
consequences if they choose to abuse their clients, and my
expression of gratitude to the people who helped me through a
difficult time.
By
Grace Tower
Author of Fish
in a Barrel: A True Story of Sexual Abuse in Therapy, published by American Book Publishing.
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