Inspired by and excerpt from an awesome post on Psychology Today: Writing Heals Wounds of Child Abuse, Part Two
"In Creativity and Repair, Andrew Brink observed that the impulse to create usually comes from some early damage to the self, and this wound or loss initiates a life’s work of healing. Writing can use language to repair psychic wounds.
Southern author Rosemary Daniell in The Woman Who Spilled Words All Over Herself explained that “…each time I wrote about my pain, I would feel the stitching and restitching inside my brain, as though festering tissue was actually being trimmed away and sealed over, to at last heal. The longer each book had taken to write, the longer had been the revision process, and the stronger the fabric of that healing.”
We are the accumulation of stories we tell ourselves about who we were. Changing our stories can change us. Through writing we can revisit our past and revise our relationship to it.
In Writing as a Way of Healing, the above mentioned book by Louise de Salvo, she advises four essentials for those of us who want to write for the purpose of deeper healing:
1. Write regularly, in a relaxed way.
2. Watch with a relaxed awareness what occurs as we write.
3. Don’t judge ourselves or our work.
4. Be patient. Write routinely. Don’t hurry it."
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"“If creative power is crippled or lost through violation, it is unleashed through healing…The creative act is a healing experience for artist and viewer, writer and reader, singer and sung to…The journey from silence into speech also breaks the barriers of shame…So breaking through the shame demands and unleashes a tremendous creative energy.”"
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I'm on Day 23 of writing my 1st ever novel (National Novel Writing Month), and I can not tell you how much this article (excerpt above) from www.psychologytoday.com spoke to me. The last 23 days have been a very interesting journey that spawned this blog, in an attempt to reach out to the world on the issue at hand... child abuse. I don't have much time to write right now as I'm trying to pick up the pace on this novel (lagging behind a good 15,000 words!), but man, it sure is exciting!
I hope to use this blog more and more not only as an outlet for myself but in an attempt to reach any of those kids that I talked about in my last post.
The time is here. The time is now. Get out.
(Oh and, to all those kids, I hope you are figuring out an artistic way to release your pain whether that be expression through painting or drawing or singing, for me it has always been writing. If you are not able to get out just yet, if you just can't bring yourself to do it for whatever reason, please keep reading this blog and I will continue to try to post when possible inspirational and motivational pieces for you. Seriously, for you, because in my heart of hearts, I have always wanted to help other kids that are in the same/similar situations as what I found myself in for those 5 years of hell. Don't give up on yourself and your ability to break free and BREAK THE CYCLE!!!)
Hugs,
T. S. Hori
*“A little talent is a good thing to have if you want to be a writer. But
the only real requirement is the ability to remember every scar.”
―
Stephen King
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