Catharsis & Too Muchness

I was in therapy today, talking about how I’d started writing on my blog again & about how cathartic it feels to just be totally honest.

I don’t really know what it’s like to live without secrets, to ask for help, to seek and foster community beyond supporting everyone else.

And I was telling them how, in the midst of writing for my blog using voice-to-text on my phone, I’ve started working on an old novel.

A romance novel to be specific, that’s partly fictional and also based on several real life events.

The thing is, the real life events are things that actually happened to me. And writing about the pieces I remember and the logic that I had in those situations is like pouring my soul out.

It’s bringing up a lot, and also feels like too much to share.

My therapist, whom I’ll start referring to by their true title — the real MVP in my life — reminded me that I don’t have to write it for everyone else. Or anyone else. It can just be for me. And I adore them for saying that.

I know it’s true, and even though it feels absolutely terrifying to share, I also wonder if it might help someone who is in my situation to feel a little less alone.

It’s brutal at times. I’m really great at disassociating from traumatic events so there are events that I write about where I can only try to paint as clear a picture as I can.

As I was writing it, and rereading it, and thinking about it, and dreaming about it and of course, talking about it in therapy — I realized that if I saw my friend go through even ONE of the dozens of things I put up with I would’ve shaken her and done everything I could to get her out.

But I stayed. And I feel so ashamed that it took so long to leave, so many times.

Even when I hear that it’s common for victims of domestic violence to take a long time, and multiple attempts to leave, I feel ashamed.

I was in an abusive relationship before that one. I was assaulted in college, and high school, and middle school and elementary school.

I grew up in a toxic and abusive house. I KNEW abuse.

And yet, I stayed.

And as I’m writing about this character, this version of me, I’m seeing the loopholes. I’m questioning the truth he painted for me.

I’m more confused and more certain about my experience at the same time. And I feel like this book is burning through my soul.

Like if I don’t share it, it’ll eat me up inside. Burn me up.

And also, it may be just the gasoline that another woman out there needs, that another human out there needs, to leave.

Being a writer and a human with feelings and trauma is really fucking hard sometimes.