While in grad school, I did a class on Trauma – studying the fictional works of those who had been through some of the most traumatic events of the 20th century (an example would be the World War One poets – Flanders Fields being one famous poem from that group).

In an effort to better understand those literary works, I ended up in the library, reading lots of science-y type texts (not an easy task for someone who was an English Lit type).

I delved into some neuroscience, and came across some interesting things about trauma, and how the memory of traumatic events is stored in the brain, as compared to regular, every day memories.

It is as if trauma is not able to be integrated properly into the ongoing narrative (or story) we continually tell and re-tell ourselves about our lives – instead, it kind of sits there like an island unto itself, something that can be literally triggered, which then leads to the person re-experiencing the event almost as if it were happening in reality all over again (i.e., people get vivid flashbacks).

Part of the trick to healing from trauma, then, it to tell one’s story – and to tell it in a way that integrates it into the overall story of one’s life.

This necessitates some creativity; stories typically have structure (beginning/middle/end) and meaning. In essence, what a person needs to do to heal from any type of trauma is to re-tell it to themselves (and others) in a way that makes sense to them (and others). To find meaning within the random, meaningless chaos that is often the nature of traumatic events (indeed, it is part of this meaningless that makes something traumatic).

We are all engaged in this ongoing narrative building and creating, whether we have been traumatized or not. It is our uniquely human trait – we are a “story species” (there is a good book about this by that name, forget the author).

Indeed, our very identity is tied up closely with our story – who we ARE is essentially our narrative memory. If you doubt this, ask yourself what happens if someone has amnesia – if they lose their memories – we say they “do not know who they are.”

This creative narrative we all tell and re-tell ourselves is important and necessary – there needs to be space in our culture to tell our stories, not just to relay “facts.”