I always hate myself when I think back on that day. I could have ended it all right there, but I didn’t. What makes me more ashamed is the reason why I didn’t stop it. While I was lying there, I knew what we were doing was wrong. I knew that I should have run out from under that blanket and called Mommy and Daddy, but I didn’t. I let Kent do that to me. For many years, I told people and myself that I was frozen with fear. This was the truth, but it wasn’t all of the truth. I was scared of what Kent would say or do to me if I left, but I was scared also because part of me enjoyed it. I remember now that I had a window of opportunity to get out of that situation. Darla and Trish started fighting again, and I went to pretend spank them, then I quickly returned to Kent, to finish our business. (Course Document 2003)
As Claire stated earlier, this was painful for her to write; it’s even painful to read. While there are far more differences than similarities among Jefferson, Lincoln, Truman, and Claire, they are similar in their risk-taking and courage in writing about these topics. It is not surprising that Jefferson, Lincoln, and Truman have long been cited in the top tier of America’s leaders. I suspect that Claire will be regarded as a top educator. Their writing quoted in this chapter shows fluency with language and vigorous thinking—two extremely important and entwined processes that I’ll take up next. Following this, I’ll briefly explore three additional pillars of writing about trauma: form and structure, other symbols, and other people.
Fluency and Thinking
About her writing of repeated molestations, Claire stated, “As I began writing, more and more incidents began to pop in my head.” This is the magic: Words trigger thoughts, and thoughts elicit words, and so, the cycle continues. The most basic reason, then, for Jefferson’s, Lincoln’s, Truman’s, and Claire’s using writing as a means of comprehending, organizing, and therefore, better controlling their traumas, is a simple one—they could write and write easily. They were used to it; they were comfortable with it; they trusted it.
They were confident that, through writing, they could impose some semblance of order on chaos. Composing through trauma works because writers can generate visible language, which in turn prompts thinking, which in turn leads to more and different writing, and the cycle of fluency continues. We often think of “fluency” as referring to how much language—spoken or written—we can produce. But, this is only half of the equation as generating language also means generating thought. The two cannot be separated, even though we have managed to do so, for a very long time. Consider the following writing, completed by a fifteen year-old boy.
I have a question for you dad is it wrong to love someone who you hate so much to want to die and hope to be released, and to be saved what would you say if I said I don’t think it would bother me to watch you die at my feet does that make me insane? Or am I just lost and confused about who I am supposed to be am I the monster the world outside of me and my beast portrays me to be do I kill to survive or take the cowards way and hide when the world looks at me what do they see a coward a hero or just a lost and abused soul so dead so dark my heart no longer beats with life as I sit there wishing that I could die I am so fucking weak inside of me I feel gone do I have this right to want to watch you bleed and fucking scream for turning me into a beast? I have a question for you before you leave when I was so messed up on my drugs that I was almost dead inside did it hurt you or did you just laugh at the thought I was hurting deep inside. (Anonymous, from state government youth services instructor, 2006)
Most readers will find much to criticize here. Sadly, the first criticism will likely be, “This kid can’t write! What lousy grammar!” While I love grammar as much as Professor Poindexter or Mrs. Grundy, it’s always the easiest response to glom on to, stopping us from seeing any larger qualities. When we neither know nor care about something, we look toward an authority—the rulebook. Another common response to this writing will likely be, “This spoiled, self-centered kid is not taking any responsibility for himself, blaming his father for everything!” This may be wholly or partly correct. I have no idea. The third common response is likely to be, “This is not real writing; it’s a rant, a mind-dump—just another piece of Dear Diary trash.”
Of these three common responses, the last one is closest to the truth. But, it’s misguided because there is nothing wrong with “rants,” “mind-dumps,” or even “Dear Diary Trash”—if you believe that fluency and self-disclosure promote thinking and health, as abundant research tells us (e.g., Pennebaker 2004; Singer and Singer 2008).
“Mind dumps” may not be pretty, but they start the generative sorting-out process, which leads to a less fragmented self. While we may not like what this young man says or how he says it, at least he’s fluent enough to begin the process of the writing-thinking cycle. Would his writing improve if he supplied and evaluated evidence? Definitely. Would his writing benefit if he revised, qualified, and elaborated his ideas? Absolutely. But if we don’t have language fluency first, then we’ll never get close to thinking and revising and reflecting—and a less fractured sense of self. How, then, are language and other symbol systems connected to thinking?
While I never separate these two crucial processes, they are commonly put into different boxes, often on different shelves. Among many others, Judy Willis, though, links writing with higher-process thinking:
Consider all of the important ways that writing supports the development of higher-process thinking: conceptual thinking; transfer of knowledge; judgment; critical analysis; induction; deduction; prior-knowledge evaluation (not just activation) for prediction; delay of immediate gratification for long-term goals; recognition of relationships for symbolic conceptualization; evaluation of emotions, including recognizing and analyzing response choices; and the ability to recognize and activate information stored in memory circuits throughout the brain’s cerebral cortex that are relevant to evaluating and responding to new information or for producing new creative insights—whether academic, artistic, physical, emotional, or social. (Willis 2011, 1)
The language most often used for critical thinking, as well as “healing”—what Willis describes as “evaluation of emotions, including recognizing and analyzing response choices”—is, you guessed it, expressive language, the very “Dear Diary Trash” we love to hate. In addition to those expressive elements that Truman demonstrated in the earlier passage, expressive language is also marked by condensing or packing a lot of meaning into a few words, which only the writer can completely unpack.
Another primary characteristic is asking yourself questions and trying to answer them, even providing several possible answers. Along with speculating and hypothesizing, other elements include expressions of doubt and qualification, litany or listing, and metaphor. In short, thinking on paper or screen. Expressive language is much like Lev Vygotsky’s (1986) concept of “inner speech,” one of the major ways in which we think (Britton et al. 1975). In the following excerpt from Claire’s paper, she wonders about her sensations when being raped. We can see the cogs and wheels in motion. We can hear her thinking on paper.
I’m trying to figure out why I got pleasure from that. It could be that I enjoyed the time with Kent. He hated me, Darla, and Trish so much when we were little. But, I adored him. I wanted to be just like him. I thought he was cool and that he knew everything. Maybe that’s why I did it. I don’t know.
I’m lying. I’m lying. I’m lying. I do know why I did it, but I’m scared of how people will judge me if I say it, write it, or even think it. Putting on this “I need his attention” act is just to cover up and suppress the truth. I’m embarrassed about how I really feel. But if you must know . . . I did it because I enjoyed that tingling feeling. You know? That tingling feeling? The kind they warn children about on “The More You Know” commercials? Well, those commercials implied that the tingling feeling was bad and that it would hurt you. It didn’t hurt me. . . .
I feel as if something is wrong with me. How could I allow a family member to turn on me? The thought of it sickens me to my stomach. I keep trying to tell myself that I’m not weird and that if anyone or anything touched a woman’s privates, she would get excited, right? My body