Member-only story
Hearing my childhood trauma narrated was re-traumatising
Back in 2013, I did a brave thing. I finally finished writing my life story of being ‘An Elective Orphan’ and published it for the world to read.
BTW: I call myself an elective orphan because I chose to cut myself off from my abusive parents at the age of 16.
I knew my story could help others in similar situations. I also kind of expected that telling it would be cathartic. In some ways it way.
But since I first birthed my humble little Kindle read, I’ve had a weird, icky sort of feeling about it. I suppose it was hard to own my story. In some ways I wanted to rip the bandaid off and take away my past’s power over me by exposing it to the light. But in others ways, it still hurt and I couldn’t look directly at it.
Exposure
I think the key thing that helped me to carry out my plan and actually share my published story, was that I had been through a lot of talking therapy over the years. I had re-hashed my story before, to many a therapist, and I wasn’t totally bowled over by saying those words out loud any more.
Hearing those words, re-telling my story in my own voice had been hard work. Speaking to the therapist and writing the words on a text document were…
