When I was younger, I used to love books! I immersed myself in them. I got lost in them. Whether it was surrounding myself on a floor with my grandmother's encyclopedia sets or National Geographic's, or reading 6 young adult novels in one weekend; I would lock myself away from my life, and my mind and escape.
Then I started writing. From perhaps the age of 13 until the end of my high school career, I wrote 6 novels. Now, bare with me, I was one of those horse obsessed girls, where The Black Stallion, the Thoroughbred series, and Black Beauty were my life!! So, I followed suit. My novels were all about the horses. I still have these rough drafts. They never got farther than that. No finished copies, no eyes other than mine grazed the pages. These books were not for anyone else. Now, when I look back, I was writing them for me, I was writing about a world that I wanted to escape to.
During that time, all my trauma from childhood assault was just coming to the surface. Kind of like when you see the stones of a riverbed just barely breaking the surface of the water. It was then I decided that one day, somehow, I would write my story. I would break away from trying to create a world I wished for, and bring to light my truth. My inspiration? If just ONE person read it, and felt a connection or impact, then it was all worth it.
I was a teenager then. This year I turn 40. Last month I decided to start writing IT. I thought IT would be easy for my words to come out as I am an open book verbally. I thought IT would be the same when the pen hit the paper.
I was wrong.
I've written the forward, and have stopped. I like to make excuses and say "My story is so complicated, how do I format it so everyone can follow along?", "Do I create a 'based on a real story' but change names and locations?". "What is my title?"
I'm really just bullshitting myself when thinking that the technical side of my story is creating a block. In reality, it comes down to "What happens when I have to write about what happened?". I know that to be true, because even at this moment my hands shake as I type. I haven't written in detail about my assault since 1997, when I wrote an 18 page police statement, one that was tossed aside because it was too well written for a 16 year old; I must be making it up, or it was just my word against my abusers.
I have always known that this book was going to be a major part of my healing from my past, but that fear of reliving it is all coming back, and there goes those metaphorical brakes of emotional writing blocks. Will writing those details again invite my many editions of anxiety I felt (my cellular memory can recall in detail every single phase of anxiety and depression I felt), or will I be hit by the 2x4 of my triggers emerging again? How will the people I love and live with be impacted when I write those parts? Will I not want to be touched or held, or will I be emotionally reactive?
As someone who now owns and runs a wellness business, I wish I could tell you that I know exactly what to do. But I don't. I could say "I'll just ground myself, meditate or self treat. I'll move through this." All things I've done in the past to help me through struggles. But I find myself in a new environment, one I've been walking towards for 35 years. I've ultimately made the decision that when it comes to that point, that chapter, that place and time to write about, I will remove myself from here to write it. Secluded at someone else's retreat, or a solo road trip that takes me to a hotel where it is just me, my pen and notebook. Just take a few days alone, to allow that layer of energy to be lifted away in private. To battle the demons one final time. And as I type that last sentence, I realize that I will be off alone dealing with my trauma the way I always did. Just me, in silence.
Yet this time it will be to share with everyone in the end. My battle, my emotional release and healing will not be met with judgement or rejection. One day, the words I write, the trauma I experienced, the life I lived, will be seen by another's eyes. Even just one person, the one that needs to read it the most.
Despite the reluctancy to write the content, the title of my story eluded me. I cannot just call it My Story. Coincidently, during a Remote energy session with a client, one who is writing their story as well, Spirit channeled the title of my story to me.
"A FLAME WITHIN THE DARKNESS: Chronicles of a Sexual Assault Survivor."
I can’t wait to read your story Carrie! Not gonna lie, I also kind of want to read the stories you wrote based on the Thoroughbred series. Those books were my jam when I was a kid!