If you are writing a memoir, you have likely experienced some traumatic experiences. In fact, that may be precisely why you have struggled to tell your story. How do you navigate that trauma without reactivating all of the emotional and physical reactions that surface every time you tell your story? Perhaps you’re afraid and suffering from PTSD, nightmares and even physical ailments that plague you whenever you dig down into the past where all the pain lives. Fear is one of the major hurdles that must be faced in order to overcome traumatic experiences. Writing can be retraumatizing, and feel like it is dredging up the past, or it can be liberating, cathartic, and transformational. Here are a few things I learned along the way while writing about trauma.
- The Self with a capital S.
The first and most important part of the process of writing about trauma is to establish the Self with a capital S. The Self that is beyond all the pain and struggle, the Self that has no beginning and no end, the soul, the inner light, call it whatever you will but this part of you must be established. Who is the person who suffered? Who is the person writing? Who is the person that desires to write? Who is the person that is observing all the parts of you that suffered, who is the person that is writing and desiring to write? The observing person is beyond all pain, beyond all suffering and is wise and patient. That part of you is the Self. This Self is untouchable and creates the safety for you to write from all the other perspectives without getting lost in the pain and suffering of the past.
- Stay Grounded in Reality
It is important to separate your writing from your reality. When writing about the past it can be a bit like time travel. The past can feel so real when writing about it, especially because good writing requires a deep immersion into the experience. Make sure you enter the past with intention and even ritual. When you are done writing, exit the past with intent or ritual. For example, after each writing session I would close out my tabs on my computer and put it to sleep, almost like putting my past selves to sleep. Then I would leave my office and imagine that I was leaving the past behind me as I reentered my reality, the reality where I was safe and loved.
- Knowing your Limits
How long can you write about painful events before losing yourself in the experience? How long can you tolerate it before collapsing? It is important to know your own limits. Some writers can barely write a few sentences before needing to recover while others can write pages and pages. There is no right or wrong way only the way that takes best care of you. Stay in your body and let your body give you clues as to when you have had enough. For me, I had a high tolerance for writing through trauma. But when the emotions began to bleed into my reality or I felt disconnected from my body that was time for me to stop and take a break. Sometimes while writing I would keep checking my pulse, just to remember that I had a body, and it was having an experience but ultimately I was still safe. Respect your limits.
- Getting to the Truth
One important part of working through trauma is to keep going until you discover something new, a new truth that emerges as a result of the writing. Just rehashing old painful events is not the purpose of writing. Writing is meant to reveal, to uncover the part of the story hidden in the secret chambers of your heart, and by doing so you begin the process of freeing yourself from shame and pain. If I don’t feel greater understanding and clarity after writing a piece, then know that there is more writing to be done and more to discover. Keep going, even if you have to take many breaks, even weeklong or month-long sabbaticals between writing sessions. Keep going until the truth is revealed to you. You may find it helpful to be in therapy during writing as a way to discover the deeper truths being excavated.
- Write the Story that Wants to be Written
When you begin writing about the past, it can feel quite conflicting. There is usually a part of you that is detached and wants to write a good story or help other people on their own journeys. That is all well and good but before any of that can happen, you have to write the story that demands to be written. Free up the inner selves that have been repressed and silenced. They want their story told. Be that voice, the voice of the sufferer. It’s okay if you sound like a victim or you don’t have compassion for others. Let the raw truth be told first. All things can be added and subtracted as needed in later stages of the writing. If you repress the story that wants to be written, you will likely never write at all.
For me, writing about trauma has been one of the few, absolutely life altering experiences to gaining understanding of the past and mastery over the present. How it may serve others becomes a continuation of how it first served me.
