Very recently, I attended a workshop about overcoming your trauma through writing. W.T.F.
When I first came across the name of the workshop, which was hosted by Writespace where I’ve attended many workshops in the past, I thought, “This is speaking to me.” I just felt it in my connective tissues that I must be a part of whatever was going to happen during this three-hour workshop.
Talking Trauma
So yesterday arrived, and I was on the fence about attending. It just feels like with my weekly therapy appointments, combined with my psychiatrist appointments, my trauma is the subject of conversation often, and it’s feeling like I just need a break from thinking about, talking about and making sense of this huge elephant in every room I find myself in. I knew if I skipped the workshop I would regret, so onward I went.
I was greeted by an intimate group of fellow writers, and survivors of trauma, people I can relate to. I’m actively working to find my tribe, my people who can understand my experiences and challenges and dreams. The workshop leader is author Nishta J. Mehra – fast forward to end of workshop and I asked her to sign my book, Brown White Black. She was so warm and enthusiastic about signing it, and I thought to myself, “This is going to be me one day. A reader holding my book asking for my signature.” She wrote a very endearing message inside and I’m so honored to have even been in her presence, let alone participate in activities she created and led, let alone have three whole hours to just soak up her wisdom. And I soaked it up!
She commanded her space. That’s what I noticed about Nishta upon entering the room. I struck up a conversation with the lady sitting next to me pretty quickly, and I recognized two Writespace members as the other workshop participants. So, when I say intimate, I mean very intimate. But, with such an intimate and delicate topic as trauma, I think the size of the workshop was exactly what it needed to be.
Body Map Revelations
Our first activity was to create a body map. I shared this with the group, hesitantly, definitely bravely, maybe naively…but shared I did. Nishta was giving us ideas as to what our body map could include – colors, words, etc. We were then given colored pencils and fine tip markers, just like in elementary school. I was intrigued and excited…and of course I chose multiple shades of pink.
Sharing my Sacredness
Sacred. My body map included the word Sacred. And, I wrote it in my most Sacred place. I have trauma surrounding this area – i.e., my sexual assault. And I’ve caused trauma to this area by choices I made, during the time when I didn’t view this part of me as sacred.
Other words I wrote were Healing around a heart I drew with the word PINK inside. Not only is pink my favorite color, but during one ketamine session, as my “trip” was ending, I saw the words, “I believe in pink.” I felt confirmation in that moment, confirmation I am good and loved just the way I am. The word Journey is written next to each foot (yes, those are meant to be feet), on top of grass I colored in. I am on a healing journey, no longer private as I am sharing my healing in real time. That’s kinda neat as a reader to get an inside look at one person’s healing…as it happens…the highs and lows…
I wrote Kindness around my lips. I try so damn hard to be super kind to everyone, sometimes I wonder if it comes across as fake, because sometimes it is fake. Sometimes I don’t want to be cheery, sometimes I want to have an emo day. But, it’s important that I follow my, albeit one of many, mantra “Leave people better than you found them.”
My hand is holding a carefully drawn pink flower with big petals. Under the flower are the words Evolve, Grow and Improve. I love flowers. They represent beauty to me. And under this beauty are my endeavors to evolve, grow and improve as a wife, colleague, mentor, friend, sister, daughter…human being. Coming to this workshop is one of the ways in which I am working to do these three things.
Generous is written under my heart. I am generous to a fault. I will go into debt to help someone who is in need and does not have the resources I have. The debt is a small price I have to pay to help this person. Anxiety and Excitement are in my stomach, which is exactly where I physically feel anxiety and excitement. All the time, every second, I am anxious – for either good things or bad things – I feel anxiety. It’s like I’m about to ride a rollercoaster, and I hate rollercoasters. Hate, hate, hate.
Something else I shared with the group was the fact I drew out my face, in somewhat detail, first before drawing my body. One reason I did that was because I wanted to look somewhat symmetrical. But, I also identify so much with my face. And the reasons are multi-faceted.
My big blue eyes are something I am proud of. My mother has blue eyes. My great grandmother had blue eyes. Ice blue eyes. Along my long brown hair I wrote the word Identify, because I do identify with my hair – it’s always been long. There is this picture of me as a little girl with my long brown locks and signature bangs. My mother also had long brown hair. And I hate when people say I look like my mother. Hate, hate, hate.
The other reason I am so fixated on my face is because my mother was so fixated on my face, my facial expressions, my expressionless face, my too-smiley face, my too-rude face – critique, rinse and repeat. Mr. P also comments on my face and I tell him I hate this and I told him why. He still does it. Makes fun of my expressions. Makes comments about how my face is looking. Maybe he’ll read this one day and fully understand he is hurting me deeply with every comment.
I wanted to be sure to include positive things on my body map. So I added the words Smart, Introspective and Author — all attributes I truly believe I have, and which I value as important. Head in Clouds written above my head – because, well, sometimes that’s where you’ll find me.
Memoir Excerpts
After the coloring activity, we read excerpts from different memoirs, which I really appreciated. Here are some of the excerpts that really spoke to me. The idea that pain is what we have associated with life since our very first breath was a healing revelation to come to know. Pain is not unique to me.
Pain might well be the first sensation a baby feels as it’s born, a gateway to the world of conscious experience, almost certainly becoming the sensation it most strongly associates with being alive.
I highlighted many excerpts from our reading of What It Takes to Heal by Prentis Hemphill, so much so that I knew I had to get the book. I checked on Spotify because some audiobooks are available through my Spotify membership. Sure enough, Hemphill’s book is included. I started listening to it a couple nights ago. I was in and out of sleep but I do plan to consciously listen to this book.
“That a physiological memory from ten or twenty years earlier can be lodged in the structure of your fasciae, and therefore in your actions and relationships.”
“But their fights were unpredictable and sometimes violent, so I learned about vigilance and dissociation, how to be here one moment and gone the next. It wasn’t safe to be out in the open.”
“‘Trauma’ is a word with its own fraught history that I use simply because it helps me to understand cause and effect, how injuries happen to the human spirit, and how we twist and wind a life around our wounds.”
“Shame comes in, telling us stories of our own inherent worthlessness.”
“That trauma breaks apart our ability to experience safety, belonging, and dignity.”
“Better to hide my own needs so deep that they would be almost imperceptible even to me. I carried this embodied trauma forward into all my relationships.”
Poetic Justice
We were each instructed to read the poem, Resolution # 1,003. Then…we each came up with a poem of our own following this structure. Then…it gets even better. We each chose one line from our poem to add to the whiteboard to create a new poem. This was the resulting poem:
I will be abused no more
I will be thunderous and heard, remembered like Harvey, like Alison and Galveston 1901
I will not be your lesson to the widening world
I will feel nothing for those who can’t see me
I will be a goddamn light
Isn’t that POWERFUL! I volunteered to go first, so the first line of that poem was a line from my poem. Here is the full poem I wrote:
I will be abused no more
Kristin Mitchener
From the gentility of my genitals
I am a sacred structure
to be reverred
I will be abused no more
from the musings of my mind
my hearts heal in tune
I will be abused no more
Journaling My Journey
Nishta encouraged us to take some time, 12 minutes to be exact, and free write, journal whatever we have in our mind. I’m going to be really fucking brave right now and share what I journaled, in hopes that it resonates with someone. That one person in this whole wide world finds a piece of peace through reading my writing…so here goes.
Addiction, sex, alcohol, promiscuity, adderall, focalin, vyvanse, more sex, harming and harmful. My body does not equal the conditionality of my mother’s love or the absence of my biological father. Sacred: I will be abused no more. I will abuse no more. I did not add depression or suicidal ideation to my body map; I’m not ashamed but I wanted to focus on good.
I thoroughly enjoyed this workshop, and I especially loved that it began with coloring! Such a fun way to express what we hold on the inside. I’m taking more workshops this month and next month so more insights are sure to come.
With joy,
Kristin
