Why Do We Have to Write About Something Hard
For as far back as I can remember I feared one thing—losing the top 5 people in my life. Maybe because I am adopted or maybe because my favorite uncle died when I was seven, the loss of these 5 people felt real and impossible to survive. And yet, I did.
Thank goodness I had my favorite hoodie with me. That hoodie saved me. I sat with the hood up covering most of my face for the entire 4-hour flight to Denver. I couldn’t stop crying. Not the kind of crying where you would hear it or even know it, only I knew it. Four hours of it. The life as I knew it was over. My husband texted with someone in secret, and even though he claimed they were only friends that night, I must have known it was more than that. I had no idea when the crying stopped, but it did. That evening checking in was a blur. I’m sure HE texted to see if I arrived and I am sure I responded–even though I couldn’t breathe and couldn’t eat and couldn’t talk. I couldn’t tell anyone that night. I could barely tell myself, although I must have. I couldn’t eat, or talk, but I could think. Damn brain. I called my cousin the next morning, and talked for an hour while getting ready for work. How will I ever work? She tried to comfort me. I did work. I didn’t eat, but I showed up for work and no one knew. No one knew that I cried all night, all plane ride. No one knew the love of my life cheated. No one knew I was heartbroken and in shock. No one. I did what I had to do. I did my work. With a smile. Without food. All week long.
To this day, I have no idea how.
Trauma:
noun
a deeply distressing or disturbing experience. An emotional upset.
I am a long way away from that young girl wishing away her fears. The fear of unbearable pain. She imagined it even as a teenager, and she NEVER wanted to experience it. Well, Christy, you’ve experienced it and you’re still standing.
When I experienced my first real loss (although at seven it was VERY real. My parents just made me feel like it wasn’t.) almost 11 years ago a principal who I worked with, and adored, recommended that I see a therapist. “You lost your sister, Christy. That’s a VERY big deal. You should do this for yourself.” So I went to one and I still see her. She is my all. My first entrée into dealing with trauma was talking and listening.
When my ex first acted out, and we were trying to make it work, I searched for every book I could find and read more than ever. Trying to figure “us” out. Trying to do whatever I could do to save my marriage. Reading helped.
I also filled journals. I wrote in my journal sometimes twice a day. My feelings were so difficult to deal with and I needed an outlet.
In addition to my therapist, I grabbed the closest friends I had and said I need you. Very hard words for me and I think for many women. I spoke almost every day with one of them. I was lucky to have these women in my life who loved me unconditionally. If I couldn’t get one, I would call another. I had to talk. I was in so much pain.
It is coming up on three years since that flight to Denver. I am finally ready to share. I can finally say I am separated and getting a divorce. The hardest words I have ever spoken.
There are a few of things that I have learned about trauma along the way.
You can’t will it away. You have to face it. However, it has to be when you’re ready.
When my sister passed I couldn’t utter it, or even think about it for several years. I still have thinking (and feeling) to do around her passing. When my husband ended our marriage, I hid it from everyone. I took off my wedding ring immediately, and remember wearing another ring at an event. Some of my closet friends didn’t know for over a year.
2. Write, write, write: Writing helps you remember, figure things out, and gives you a place to deal with strong emotions.
3. Reading helps: you may need to read immediately or not until later, or both.
4. Talking and listening can heal: This is the hardest thing. No one wants to talk. Talking means so many things. Means it’s real, means you may open up, means you may take responsibility, may mean I am weak.. May mean I need you.
Every summer for the last sixteen years I have facilitated a writing institute. I always write and share hard stuff. I try to be vulnerable. One summer a friend Dahlia Dallal said, “You should read Love That Dog. It’s perfect for a week-long institute. It talks about the power of writing and it also has an important message.” That summer, a few summers before my sister died, I realized the power of that book. The power to write and talk and listen and read to heal.
Every writing institute (or retreat as one district called it) someone cries (often many). Every institute someone writes about something hard (often many). And every institute someone (usually one) says why do we have to write about something hard? I give the answer that I am hoping will get teachers to write and share and be vulnerable with their kids. I say, “Kids have to read books with deep issues and walk away doing high level interpretation work, yet in their writing they won’t go there.” I always use books that 3rd, 4th, 5th graders have to read to justify writing about hard stuff. Writing about trauma. I won’t do that again.
Glennon Doyle writes in her book Untamed:
“I have learned two things about pain.
First: I can feel everything and survive. I’d never be free from pain but I could be free from the fear of pain, and that was enough.
Second: I can use pain to become. Everything I need to become the woman I’m meant to be next is inside my feelings of now.
She quotes Buechner, “Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.
If you are uncomfortable – in deep pain, angry, yearning, confused—you don’t have a problem, you have a life. Being human is not hard because you’re doing it wrong, it’s hard because you are doing it right. You will never change the fact that being human is hard, so you must change your idea that it was ever suppose to be easy.”
Two books got me through and continue to get me though this pandemic– Untamed by Glennon Doyle and Permission to Feel by Marc Brakett.
Trauma, pain, issues…these things we can’t avoid. Let’s use our love for each other, and literacy to get through, heal, and move on.
More to come actually, much.
With Love~
Christy
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