Write the pain away
A significant milestone just passed. A day that has been historically commemorated with mourning, ritual remembering, and lots and lots of writing.
Some might say that focusing on the trauma by writing about it doesn’t help to move on from it and instead keeps it alive within us but I have found the opposite. Writing is what allows us to release it.
We take that pain and hurt and we write it away.
In my experience spending intentional time writing about painful experiences doesn’t just highlight the pain, it processes it. When done with a focus on learning, growth, and release, the writing metabolizes the hurt so that we can digest it.
Shining a light on the hard stuff might make it feel brighter in that moment, but that’s also how we burn it up. When we utilize intentional prompts, we can symbolically (or physically) light the words on fire and watch them float away with the smoke and turn into ash.
I must have done enough writing because this year, I didn’t even realize the date until today - 10 days after it passed.
As I write this, it has been 24 years and 10 days since I was sexually assaulted and my life split between the Me-Before the rape and the Me-After the rape.
In years past, I knew the date was approaching for weeks. Memories haunted my dreams and I’d spend days writing to process it in an attempt to move through it.
As the years have gone by, the grief and pain has gotten so much smaller and my beautiful life has gotten that much bigger. The previous hurt is almost unrecognizable and instead has turned to gratitude.
I love where I am today and I wouldn’t be here if not for that life-altering event so I am thankful for the experience.
Curious how I got here to this place of peace?
My post below from last year details it well and includes many of the writing strategies I used, in conjunction with my therapist. Check it out…
Surviving Sexual Assault with Writing
Writing has always helped me find healing. When verbalizing, words escape me. I’m often stunted and can easily go mute, unsure of what to say, afraid to say the wrong thing. Words find me when I’m writing. As if I could raise the dead, the words come alive when my fingertips graze the keyboard. The words seek me out and flow through me when the pen is in my hand.
I recommend using the journal prompts within the post above to process your own painful experiences as those prompts were especially helpful for my healing.
Below you’ll find some more prompts that are not as directly targeted towards trauma but are still helpful healing prompts.
Journal Prompts:
Do you have any experiences that splintered your life and created a Before-That Moment and an After-That Moment? Write about those two versions of yourself. (the moment doesn’t have to be a trauma or painful experience, it can be a lovely, special positive moment or experience that still splintered yourself into two)
Are there any significant dates that you remember each year? Who or what do they honor?
In what ways have you noticed that writing helps you heal? Describe the process of how it works and how it feels for you.
Writing, alongside yoga and a community of supportive people, is what helped me heal. I wrote about how these three can come together to help us all heal in my book: Fragile Thoughts: A Healing Memoir. Check it out here.
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That's beautiful Katie. It's always so satisfying to reflect on how far you've come, especially when you have that before/after perspective. I have also found writing to be incredibly healing. 💜