Framing and Reframing Trauma

What story am I making up to process and integrate what has happened and what is happening in my life?

My work has brought me into deep conversations with survivors of severe trauma, including war, sex abuse, incarceration, terminal diagnoses, and grief.

Holocaust survivors

Grief-stricken mothers who lost a child

Combat veterans who were wounded or lost limbs

Soldiers with invisible disabilities

Sexual abuse survivors

People whose parents were murdered

People who lost loved ones to suicide

Eating disorder sufferers

Domestic abuse survivors

Aggravated battery survivors

Incarcerated criminals

People with a loved one who died suddenly

Doctors who’ve lost patients

Near-death accident survivors

Medical malpractice victims

Chronic illness sufferers

Children and adults with narcissistic, abusive, or neglectful parents

People sexually abused by clergy

Incest/rape victims

People wrongfully accused and blackballed

Addicts

A frostbite victim

Animal attack victims

Hang gliding and paragliding pilots who were permanently injured

Paraplegics and parents of paraplegics

People estranged from family

Political dissidents ousted from their communities for their controversial views

People who committed involuntary manslaughter

A game park ranger who killed a poacher

People who witnessed death

Women who have had miscarriages, abortions, or birth trauma

Loss of a dear pet

Loss of wealth

Marital infidelity, financial abuse, betrayal, or abandonment

The moment of disclosure is crucial to a trauma survivor. There are times when extreme sensitivity is called for. An editor needs to develop the skill to intuit when indirect writing may serve the writer and/or the story, and what is at stake when topics are directly addressed. How is one to know the “right” approach to storytelling in this arena—both what the writer can handle and what the audience can receive? The trauma-sensitive editor needs to understand the risks and benefits of turning personal writing into a commercial product. The editor shepherds clients through a challenging metamorphosis. Clients are motivated, but need attuned support through the unforeseen triggers that may arise while they “come out” with their story. An editor needs discernment; a client may need to a referral to therapy. Memoirists reporting on their adverse experiences often brace for blowback, and the objective is to help a writer overcome paralysis when fear of the consequences of truthtelling threaten to impede creative flow. 

Jen Gilman Porat, writing for Brevity, deftly describes the pitfalls of embarking on writing memoir: In a Book I Haven’t Read, I Found Permission to Write

I was fortyish and familiar with psychotherapy and many healing modalities before I learned the term C-PTSD. It was in Kati Standefer’s all-day workshop, “Writing the Trauma Essay” in Manhattan. A gong sounded in my mind when the term was defined. Resistance softened and I embraced the label. The label helped clarify what I’d previously seen as bad luck, or a magnetism for recurring trauma (mostly in romantic relationships). In the same way medical patients are thankful to receive a diagnosis for a mysterious complex of symptoms, the term C-PTSD explained why trauma seemed to repeat in my experience.

When I started bleeding at age 11, I hadn’t yet had sex education, and I didn’t know about menstruation. I concluded, “This is what happens to bad little girls.” I thought it was a direct result of something I had done, and I felt immense shame. I hid the bleeding for several days, keeping folded toilet paper in my underwear, until my older sister barged into the bathroom and discovered my menstruation. She called my mother, and they were exuberant, and my mother slapped my cheek—a European custom, I’m told—which seemed to confirm that I was deserving of punishment. I saw they were joyful and congratulatory. The confusion was great until clarity and understanding came; but I’ll always remember my initial shame.

In 2015, I attended a workshop called, “Menarche Recapitulation Ceremony,” co-taught by Jacqueline Rolandelli and Cathy Lipsky. Jacqueline is a shamanic mystic and women’s embodiment mentor; Cathy practices Mayan Abdominal Massage Therapy. A small group of women gathered for discussion, healing rituals, and nourishing food. In guided meditation, we visited the time three days before our first period and reprogrammed positive thinking around menstruation. Then we reimagined the first day of our periods, integrating revised beliefs and affirmations that we might have needed then. It was incredibly restorative.

Another reframe and epiphany came through a workshop meditation guided by Trauma Informed Somatic Therapy practitioner, Dana Canneto, called “The Sensitive Soulful Women’s Series,” where we sensed any place in our body that was injured or hurting, and we “elevatored down to our organs” then entered into dialogue with our organs. Both Dana Canetto and Jacqueline Rolandelli, on separate occasions, had me dialogue with my organs in guided meditations and bodywork, and these sessions were life-changing because they brought results in my wellbeing, and they taught me a new skill I could use as needed for self-healing.

There comes a time when you realize no one else can heal you, and you must gather your faculties and resources and heal yourself. It becomes a matter of survival. It may come after failed attempts to get external validation or healing from a practitioner, friend, or family member. Even given some positive interventions, you inevitably hit the limit of what others can offer in terms of healing. Learning the term C-PTSD woke me up to the fact that I must change something in myself to stop the cycle of violence. I became motivated to be a guardian and change agent for creatives taking the raw material of trauma and making art.

At every new stage of maturity, we reevaluate and reinterpret the facts of our experience. My early childhood experiences bubbled up around ages 17, 21, and 34… finishing high school, entering the workforce, getting married, and having children. Divorce was a whopper of a trauma, a dark night of the soul. I was repeatedly told, “There’s light at the end of the tunnel.” For a while, I could not see the light from inside the dark tunnel. Major lifecycle events tend to thrust us into reevaluating our roles and beliefs. Wounds can be reopened, emotions can be reactivated—and potentially further healed—during times of upheaval or punctuated development. Like the term C-PTSD, I had never seen  The Power and Control Wheel until I attended a divorce support group. A better understanding of how childhood adverse events leaves one vulnerable to repeated trauma took years to crystalize. I think many writers believe that if they can deliver their hard-earned wisdom in a nutshell (in a poem, an essay, or a book), they might offer someone who needs it a direct route to liberation from suffering.

Writers believe that if they can deliver their hard-earned wisdom in a nutshell (a poem, an essay, or a book), they might offer to someone who needs it a more direct route to liberation from suffering.

The Trauma-Sensitive Editor project is an extension of my ongoing effort to heal myself and my communities. Writing is the single most powerful practice that improved my quality of life. A body of clinical research shows writing to be a very effective healing tool. How reading heals is perhaps less studied, but we know that narratives of struggle and triumph outlast their creators and form an invaluable archive of the human experience.

When a person feels safe to speak their truth, this is when stories emerge.

A recent client reported having attended rehab 20 years ago. He stopped drinking, but felt since he hadn’t completed the 12-step program, he had unresolved psychological issues. Because of this, he avoided writing his recovery narrative. I could tell he was avoiding looking at the pinch points in his personal timeline. Being prolific as a mainstream journalist was his way of playing it safe. I reflected this to him, and he had a breakthrough. He found the courage to do some highly personal writing and publish it.

Working now with combat veterans, I’m seeing a pattern in their oral storytelling: first they say they don’t want to tell anyone what they did and saw on the battlefield. They have an allegiance to their long-held secrets. They’ve sealed the vault. They see themselves as guardians of the ugly truths of war, and seem innately aware that secondary trauma is possible in the listener, especially if the listener is family. This worry is especially pronounced in fathers who are reluctant to tell their daughters their stories.

In so many cases, there is a lack of support, acceptance, and resources offered to veterans upon their return from tours of duty. One writer says he was shunned by family and neighbors who’d been opposed to the war, when he returned from Vietnam. The damage done by their trauma seems irreversible, and their suffering post-trauma seems endless. 

The veteran begins by saying he doesn’t want to tell—but what transpires proves the opposite to be true. There’s a desire to unburden themselves, and once they get started, the floodgates open. They tend to run long, and not want to stop talking with the sympathetic person who’s neutral, unconditionally accepting, and willing to listen.

About seven years ago, I integrated visual prompts into my workshops. Images speak directly to our subconscious, unmediated by language. I created a deck of 8.5" x 11" laminated images to use as prompts, with a couple different frameworks. In one exercise, I say, “Pick a card, any card. Now write just two sentences about it.” Participants circle back to use the two sentences as their own custom prompt for a timed writing exercise (a.k.a., “looping”). Even when there’s zero pressure to write personal responses, the life stories surface. This happens every time I use the deck.

We all live with our private inner dialogue running constantly. There is a sense of risk involved in writing our life stories down and creating evidence or a material artifact of what occurred. Oral stories disappear and can’t be traced; they’re safer than committing to writing. So, how does a writing coach bring someone who is afraid to write over the barricades?

I try to approach indirectly, letting people know we aren’t here to open wounds; however, when I use an array of images to spark freewriting so participants can get only as personal as they wish, 9 times out of 10, given an open-ended prompt, participants will reveal intimate details without being prodded. Ironically, what people say they don’t want is actually what they do want: an outlet, a release valve, a witness, and a trustworthy confidant.

In this regard, a journal can be an echo chamber of the mind, and fall short of the desired catharsis or healing that telling and receiving validation in real-time offers. But the risk of exposure is formidable and shuts down even America’s bravest.

Pam England, a midwife, birth story specialist, and author of The Labyrinth of Birth among other books, noted that when mothers tell their birth stories looking for validation, and hear others’ stories of medical trauma and malpractice as a response, they may get “hooked” or stuck in a negative mindset without experiencing the growth and healing they wish for.

England’s web site mentions “the temenos of transformation.” Temenos: a temple enclosure or court in ancient Greece; a sacred precinct. Plural: temene. Etymology: Greek, piece of land cut off as an official or sacred domain; temenos, from temnein, to cut (Merriam-Webster).

An editor who sees themself as an agent in a trauma survivor’s healing, while distinct from a psychotherapist, understands that their reactions and feedback on writing may affect a writer’s mindset. As an editor, I might gently nudge a client beyond their comfort zone, in service to the artist’s growth and in service to the goals of the project. When sensitivity and discernment are practiced, the collaborative relationship can be a sacred container for transformation.

PROMPT: On page 115 of Living Revision: A Writer’s Craft as Spiritual Practice, a marvelous, stimulating question is posed. (I wrote for almost an hour in response to it. I go back to this writing often. I printed and pasted the answer on the wall beside my writing desk.) I recommend leaving adequate time to chew on this, ruminate, concentrate, and allow new possibilities to enter. Listen for a voice that comes from deep inside yourself when you write, and envision the work you’ll do in the coming seasons of your life, guided by your principles, values, and ideals:

In what ways is your project an extension of your own life force?