Am I Scared?

Why in the world would you want to write the story of your assault?

•          Wouldn’t it be better if you didn’t write or talk about it?

•         You’ve kept it quiet all these years, why write now?

•          Why dig this stuff up again?

•          I’ll just cry and get upset. I don’t have the time to break down…again!

•         No big deal, I’ll keep adding to my journal like I’ve been doing for years…..

Writing Trauma is Hard

Let’s be honest with each other. It’s hard to write about your trauma. It’s a battlefield we seem destined to travel when telling what happened.  If you write it, what will my daughters, husband, mother, friends, and co-workers think?  Maybe they will listen and maybe they won’t believe you. Maybe there will be retaliation. You’ll have to answer questions, not the least of which are about yourself, your behavior, your actions, and your choices. By the time you’re done, you may be punished for telling!

What if they ask a question?  I know I’m ready to answer within the context of our OSV project and how I learned to write my story. Not only how it turned into a published poem, but how I can stand separate from the story. It is not me. It is what happened to me.

In an OSV email sent out this July, Marie says that “Writers know it’s tough to write a romantic or erotic scene. Sexuality is not a simple topic. Add some violence and trauma; it can feel like a disaster before the pen hits the page.”

UGH

I wrote journal after journal. They become a faucet of drenching grievance. I eventually got sick of hearing my victimized voice and finally took the story to a writing class, a simple neighborhood writing class, and something emerged.

That ‘something’ was messy and tear-stained, but it had a kernel of strength. As I applied the weekly exercises to the story, it took form, it acquired some grit and allowed me to stand upon it, separate from the negative emotion that swathed my journals.

Here at OSV, we find the stories of our writers heartbreaking and horribly commonplace. They should not be. We see these stories because of the connection of community. Our Silent Voice is not silent in the shared stories of our experience.

OSV can help you get the words out and onto the page. In the telling, the past can be brought to light, and the burden lifted or let go. 

Our strength is based on the belief that, by forgiving ourselves, a foundation is laid for healing.  The human ability to move forward when compassion is offered without judgment is real and powerful.

That’s worth years of journaling and beating yourself up.

Please explore our website. If anything resonates and you’re interested in telling your story, email us at mpjp@oursilentvoice.com.  You can buy the first anthology, Break the Silence and use it as a springboard to write out some of your own darkness. We accept darkness.

If you want to write your story and don’t know how to start, we’ll offer to help you make something useful, something brilliant that will have others feel less alone.

We welcome you to the OSV Community.