Writing about Trauma

I’ve seen ads for an online class or two on the subject of writing about trauma. They’re directed to woman and are centered around past traumas, the ones that fester in the darkness. When we shine a light on them, they have a chance of healing and even offering up guidance on how to go forward, stronger.

But what about the trauma we’re all walking through, women and men, right now?

I live in the States, where we are in the throes of an out-of-control pandemic (that as of Monday morning had killed 150,000 Americans), near Depression-era unemployment with its attendant loss of health care for millions of people, and the looming threat of mass evictions.

People are rising up to protest systemic racism and the belief in white supremacy that fuels it. And while vandals should be arrested — by local police — an infusion of federal troops is nightly beating and gassing thousands of peaceful protestors.

We are awash in pain and confusion, anger and intolerance, fear.

Not everyone is experiencing this trauma to the same degree, of course. And many refuse to acknowledge that they are being traumatized at all. But they are. We all are.

And I know that other countries have their own versions of this dark chaos (except for maybe New Zealand, the country everyone I know wants to move to).

Do we write about this trauma? Do we wait for it to be over and then look back in hindsight, or do we use it now? And if so, how?

Writer Arundhati Roy said:

Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness — and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe.

A pretty radical view of art, yes? Maybe not something you agree with.

But all of us are restless; all of us have stories to tell, stories that speak our truth, not a truth someone else has tried to feed us.

All of us are experiencing trauma. And the best way for writers to keep it from settling into their bones is to write about, to shine a light on it.

Maybe in a journal that no one else sees. Maybe in a blog. Maybe in articles or stories you publish on Medium. Maybe in social media posts.

Maybe as the foundation for your story collection, your novel, your memoir about this time.

There are no right or wrong answers. Just questions, areas to explore — the fuel for all powerful writing.