4 Steps for Knowing When to Write Your Trauma Story
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Several years ago, when travelling through Ireland, I decided to try the iconic cold plunge at the Forty Foot in Dublin. I’d always loved swimming, so I thought it would be relatively easy. I was mistaken. After leaping into the Irish Sea, the shock of cold was beyond what I had imagined, and for a moment I feared sinking into the frigid depths. I scrambled out, very much humbled, and pulled my coat tight around me.
That experience — falsely assuming my body could very literally jump into extreme conditions merely because I wanted to — was a wake-up call.
Writing about very personal experiences, especially those involving trauma, is not unlike my failed attempt to join the tough-skinned, lifelong ocean dippers in Ireland. All writing is work, but the very hardest kind — writing about trauma — should be approached with care. Facing the darkest, most hidden parts of your life must be prepared for strategically. You face the possibility of not only revisiting your most difficult life experiences anew but laying bare to the world your trauma.
Knowing when to write about trauma is equally important to deciding whether you should. This is because timing, like in comedy, also applies to when a trauma memoir or essay will make the most impact upon its release. Herein I offer clarity in determining whether you are ready to commit to writing and sharing about your trauma.
The big question: is publishing your trauma the right choice?
Trauma is deeply personal, and yet readers are drawn to it because it tells the story of
broader human experience. This connection between writer and reader means you cannot approach the experience as though in a vacuum.
Though each trauma narrative is unique due to its specific context — losing a loved one in a car accident on Christmas Eve, becoming a paraplegic from a rock-climbing fall, or having survived a childhood rife with abuse — readers remain committed to a trauma story for two primary reasons. First, readers may see something of themselves reflected in the trauma narrative, a mirroring of their own hard experiences; second, readers are keen to deepen their understanding of a victim’s trauma. In part, this engagement with a traumatic story may be an act of catharsis: a term first coined by Aristotle to describe an audience’s reaction to witnessing tragedy (“Oh god, I’m so glad that hasn’t happened to me!”). It may also evoke an outpouring of empathy, where the reader temporarily absorbs a writer’s trauma, then walks a proverbial mile in their shoes. Regardless of the reader’s motivation, they are accepting the burden of bearing witness to another’s trauma.
Answering why you want to write your trauma story must include why you wish a reader to witness your trauma. Your writing, if published or shared, becomes something far beyond solely you.
If you are contemplating writing your own trauma story, possibly with the eventual goal of sharing it with a few (or many) people, you first need to establish that why — the motivation behind making your story known. Is it for vengeance: to expose a lifelong abuser who is now dead? Is it to draw attention to an issue and by extension advocate for awareness of a systemic problem like drug use and overdose? Are you hoping to change people’s minds about an issue?
As StoryGlu.com’s Steven Donahue has mentioned in a previous FriesenPress post, your “book-writing odyssey” can’t just be about sharing your story, since that in itself “won’t be enough to take you to the promised land of creating a book you can be proud of in print.”
Only when you determine why you need to share your story will a reader be willing to buy in, invest their emotional and mental energy, and make space to hear about your experience. Next, you’ll need to ascertain whether now is the time to open yourself up and write about your trauma.
How to gauge your readiness, right now
Much like preparing (or being ill-prepared) for a marathon or ice-cold sea dip, assessing your mental fitness is a definite requirement when setting out to write about trauma. Do not approach writing your book or memoir as therapy. If that is your state of mind, your writing is best left to a personal journal, or shared in a closed session with a counsellor.
A few years ago, I was hired by a middle-aged client to ghostwrite her personal memoir-with-a-message — one that described a childhood rife with unimaginable abuse, neglect, and disenfranchisement. She knew she was ready to author her story. She was motivated by a desire to challenge people’s perspectives on troubled children and to advocate for improvements to government child welfare systems. Another client for whom I acted as a book coach had until recently hoped to have a child. She had arrived at a place of sitting with her loss, facing a future without children. She wanted to act as a support for others experiencing similarly traumatic pain, and eventually became a counselor for folks going through infertility. Her book is the written manifestation of her mission.
If you have worked towards growing your emotional resilience around your trauma and have established your why, you are ready to do a kind of litmus test to assess your trauma-writing readiness. This can be done through a series of increasingly strenuous tasks:
1. Just Get It Out
Journal extensively, and for several purposes. First, be your own journalist and document the facts. Write out a chronology or timeline of what happened to you. Second, pivot to writing about how you felt throughout your traumatic experience. Before you can truly write your trauma memoir or story, you will need to clarify the outward and inward experiences, which go hand in hand.
Some stories will best be written within a short span of time following the traumatic experience in order to offer a raw, fresh perspective (especially if it is reflective of issues in the current social milieu). Other stories that are more historical can offer the uniqueness of the writer’s maturity and sense of separation from their trauma. Waiting too long may compromise your ability to write the necessary details.
2. Deepen the Narrative
Brainstorm “scenes,” if you will, wherein your depicted trauma will be most poignant or dramatic. Now, write them two ways: First, write the story in third-person, in an omniscient voice. Remove your intensely personal feelings surrounding the story and describe it as though narrating a scene from a film. Second, write a version of the same story in first-person. While the latter may be more emotionally taxing, it will give you an opportunity to work out how prepared you are to put your memories on paper, and from two perspectives. If this process is too difficult, it is an indication that it may be too soon to be writing about your trauma.
3. Find a Trusted Listener
Ask someone close to you, who you can trust to be honest and gentle (such as your spouse, a good friend, or family member), if you can share your story with them. How does it feel to let someone else hear about your trauma? The response to sharing your story will quickly make your readiness to write apparent — but equally important, your willingness to have your story read by another person.
Making these often-hidden parts of yourself public may change how you are perceived. Do you want to publish under your own name, or do you perhaps want to use a pseudonym to protect your privacy while still sharing your truth? Are there potential privacy, libel, or legal impacts from sharing your experience? Should you seek legal counsel to protect yourself while publishing your story? The answers to these questions might adjust how you proceed.
4. Picture This
The last step is to envision how you would feel once you have a published book that shares your trauma story with untold numbers of people. There will be critics, opinions, advice, and any number of other voices that want to respond to your story. To prepare for this, imagine being on a podcast or radio interview where the host asks you personal questions about your trauma, about the writing process, about your recovery or your psychological state today. Can you imagine being in that scenario without feeling retraumatized?
Once you successfully work through these four steps, in addition to having established a clear sense of why you want to share your story with others and why an audience should read your story, then the only step left is to begin writing.
This doesn’t necessarily mean it will be smooth sailing from here on out, however. Writing at length about your trauma may surprise you at varying points during the process; it may get easier, or it may become difficult. But it remains up to you when to hit pause or to stop. If you can’t continue but still want your story to get out there, you can seek out a support system, hire a book coach, or a ghostwriter. There are options to still move forward.
Be gentle with yourself, provide yourself space and time to process as you write about your most difficult life experiences.
Finally, be emboldened. There are many more readers who will become your virtual cheerleaders and supporters than there will be critics. If you have the emotional resilience to imagine your story out in the world, then get to it! I believe in you, and I, for one, will celebrate your bravery and strength when I’m on the reading portion of your journey.
Amy Russell-Coutts is a freelance writer, ghostwriter, and researcher, living and working in Delta, B.C. She has ghostwritten upwards of a dozen memoirs, several inspirational business books, and has dabbled in speechwriting when the opportunity arises. She has been privileged to work for Steve Donahue, founder of Storyglu.com. Amy's professional portfolio can be viewed at amyrussellcoutts.com.
