Write to live

I have always been a writer. Whether or not I’m any good is up to you, but for a long time, the possible judgment of others hobbled my abilities. An acute fear of humiliation and criticism kept me from pursuing my passion in any sort of public way. Obviously, that ship has freaking sailed.

Funny, isn’t it? For most of my life, I avoided sharing my writing so that it and, in some twisted way in my head, I wouldn’t be rejected, but now I display my broken bits and pieces to anyone who cares to come along for the ride. Opening my closet door so wide that everyone can see the skeletons I’ve stuffed inside has finally allowed my inner voice to break free. There’s nothing like getting sucker punched by someone you trust to encourage you to reevaluate your life choices and realize that if you can survive that, what’s a little criticism?

For a long time after the crime, a small group of people and pets kept me stitched together enough to keep me functioning, albeit sometimes at a very low level. They did everything they could to prevent me from unraveling all the way. This was critical for my recovery. But they couldn’t help with everything. When you’ve lost touch with yourself, there’s not much others can do to help. Rediscovering who you are is a solitary endeavor.

There were days I felt so frayed and stretched that I was sure I would rip in two if one more thing tugged on my hem. When you’re wrapped up in the symptom over-stimulation that PTSD delivers, one more tug can even be something simple like heating up leftovers so you can eat dinner or getting a single load of laundry done so your child has clean socks. Throughout our ordeal, I managed to keep us fed and dressed every day, but sometimes it was a close call. There were large swathes of time when that was all I managed. I had no ability to focus on anything else – except when I sat down to write. That’s when I could make sense of what was happening inside my head – thoughts, emotions, fears – and find the parts of me that were in the gravest danger of being swept away.

Through writing, I began to remember who I was. I began to uncover who I wanted to be. I began to heal.

If you’ve been with me since the beginning, you know that after our lives imploded, my son and I moved from Upstate New York to Washington State. During our three-week cross-country extravaganza, I wasn’t ready to even consider processing the shit we had just survived. Instead, I blogged about our adventures on the road. With two dogs and a cat in tow, I had plenty of quirky and entertaining snippets to share. We may have been damaged and hurting, but as long as we kept moving we didn’t break. After we reached our destination and moved into our house, reality set in and my struggles with PTSD began in earnest. I practically stopped writing – it was too difficult to express what I was feeling. Hell, sometimes it was too difficult to do anything at all.

Just before the trial, I was ready to unleash my voice. I could no longer remain silent. Containing the horror of what my ex had done was too massive to hold inside. It was completely debilitating. I wrote a post and told everyone that my husband had molested my child. I will never forget how scary and freeing it was to open myself up like that. I will also never forget the subsequent email he sent threatening to sue me if I didn’t take it down…

With each writing project, I healed a tiny bit more although it didn’t always feel like it at the time. I wrote to get the thoughts and memories out of my head, but they often brought up so much emotion and chaos that I sobbed as I typed. With each revision, I would cry a little less or need fewer breaks to keep going. Because I revise each post many times before publication, I quickly realized that my writing was a type of exposure practice. Eventually, I could see that someday I would be able to think about writing something just for fun – maybe a new novel.

One night, shortly after completing therapy, my psychologist best friend called and said, “I’ve done something a little crazy. It involves you.”

Uh-oh.

She gave a little laugh – the kind that means that whatever is about to come out of her mouth is more than a wee bit crazy.

This made me nervous.

I adore Lisa and have complete trust in her, but she does tend to rope me into things that I would never even think about doing on my own. Over the years, her schemes have helped me expand my comfort zone and reevaluate my options. It’s pretty fabulous actually. But on this particular day, I wasn’t sure I was up for any boundary line adjustments – especially the type that tend to accompany that particular laugh of hers.

One thing I should mention – Lisa is the master at dropping a tantalizing nugget of information in your lap that makes you yearn to know exactly what she knows, but once she’s tempted you, she always circles back to the very beginning of her story. And it’s never short. Lisa likes to talk.

She’d just told me that I was about to do something a little crazy – I already knew I’d go along with her plan – and then switched to a discussion of her role as an assistant professor at UCSD.

What the hell?

Ten minutes later, the bricks of her story were stacked high enough that I could see what she was building and how I might be involved. My level of interest in the conversation was now peaked.

Collaborating with Lisa on Behavioral Activation for PTSD: A Workbook for Men was my second therapy. Not only is behavioral activation a good way to attack your symptoms and triggers on your own, but I was completely immersed in it for months – how could I not begin practicing it? As we wrote and revised, I was forced to look at my remaining challenges. Like my blog writing, there were times it was excruciating. At first, I triggered every time I worked on the manuscript. But I couldn’t stop – not only was it my greatest wish to be a published author, but Lisa’s professional reputation was on the line. We had to do this right – and not just for us – but for all of the people out there who needed to hear what we had to say.

My third therapy came when Lisa and I had the brilliant idea to build a website to help those struggling with PTSD and to help educate their friends and families. FriendsFightBack was born – and with it came more writing and even a few speaking engagements.

And then, last October, during the final days of the month, I made a decision to do something crazy – all on my own. It was time to get back to my number one writing passion – fiction. November is National Novel Writing Month (NANOWRIMO) and I’d had a compelling character in my head for years. I’d even tried writing her story once during my recovery, but I just couldn’t get the words to flow. I only had a basic idea of the plot, but my character was ready to talk. Not only did I sign up to participate in the massive, annual write-along challenge, but I was going to complete it – I would write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November.

I did it. But I didn’t stop when I got to 50,000. Instead, I wrote 60,000 words. In 30 days. It was insane and absolutely amazing. For years, this character had lived inside of me, but I’d never understood her motivation before. Why did she make the choices she made? As I began to write and the words spewed onto the page – the answer was obvious – like me, she was a trauma survivor. This was my fourth therapy.

Throughout it all, writing has been my best tool for expressing what’s going on in my life and my mind. But it has also played another role for me. This documentation allows me to go back to a specific moment in time to see what I was struggling with and how I was thinking or feeling. When I feel stuck and can no longer see my progress, I reread an early blog post and realize just how far I’ve come.

You can do this too. It doesn’t matter if you aren’t a writer, you can still benefit from writing about your experiences as you heal from your own trauma or grief. Keep a journal, make notes on a calendar about what you’re feeling or thinking, write a short survival story and make yourself the hero, write letters to the people who hurt you – it doesn’t matter if it’s good, if you use proper grammar, if you spell everything correctly – just say whatever you need to say to get some of those terrible memories and thoughts out of your head. Date your writing so that you have a record of your own progress to refer to later.

Of course, writing is not the only tool I’ve used to recover from PTSD. In addition to my stellar support system, I’ve had professional help along the way and I’m dedicated to educating myself. Here are some things that have helped me:

• Completing Prolonged Exposure Therapy – this was a total game changer;
• Reading anything and everything about trauma – understanding what’s happening inside my brain helps me find new tricks for counteracting it;
• Challenging my remaining symptoms – to do this I utilize behavioral activation and exposure tactics;
• Uncovering my triggers – this helps me sort out how to eliminate them or reduce their impact;
• Talking with other survivors – listening to their stories and discussing our differences and similarities often results in revelations about my own symptoms that I’d never even considered.

And I write.

Through writing, I remember who I am. I uncover who I want to be. I heal. I live. I thrive.

I. Am. A. Writer.

Thanks for reading. Today’s photos are from a recent walk we took in Port Gamble Forest Heritage Park.