Healing or Avoiding?: The Pros and Cons of Writing About Personal Trauma
My confessional writing isn’t as bold as you might believe.
Years ago, I published my first #MeToo story on social media. I was very deliberate about how I shared this essay with a majority of the people I knew. Instead of sending a link to my friends and family, or even letting them know that I was going to post it, I simply waited for people to see it and read it. I assumed that if they wanted to, they’d reach out to me.
I was not interested in asking my family or friends what they thought about it. I didn’t promote it or begin conversations about it. I was content to post it, log off and silence my phone.
To this day, as you can see, I still write about my experiences with sexual violence on Medium and the Say It Loud blog. However, I’ve come to a bit of an odd realization. What seems like such an empowered narration of my traumatic events is actually a little bit of self-protection.
Of course, writing this essay years ago is what allowed me to find the confidence to relinquish control of my narrative and lift my once-silenced voice. It was certainly a defining moment for me, and the beginning of my writing career.
