Writing Trauma: Notes of Transcendence, #6—Memoir’s Ladder to Recovery
Through his words, the writer calls for change. He transforms traumatic experience from a state of helpless victimhood into one of empowered transcendence.
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Through his words, the writer calls for change. He transforms traumatic experience from a state of helpless victimhood into one of empowered transcendence.
Caldwell’s memoir is a deep exploration into how human and human-animal connections can heal us from traumatic experiences.
Writing in second person point of view, I found power in a situation in which I’d felt powerless. I was no longer the victim but the witness…
Perhaps I’d brought Heart of Darkness to court with me not as reading material but as a talisman, as a symbol of what I believe literature has the power to do.
Examining painful truths, I left behind the stories. I developed an aversion to reading. When I picked up a book, it was as if my brain closed a door. How could I, a writer and an English professor, no longer have a desire to read?
Writers have the privilege—and power—of putting words to experience: the good, the bad, and the ugly.
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