"Writing and Healing and the Rhetorical Tradition"

Post-Tramatic stress is very real. I never knew how extensive the damage trauma does to a persons' brain. 

"Thus, the Greeks of this era viewed all disease not just what we now call post-traumatic stress disorder as open to the curative powers of language. But it might be more correct to suggest that the Greeks viewed the onset of disease as a form of trauma. In other words, what Entralgo calls the "primitive" character of disease might best be understood as the traumatic character of disease. This pre-classical notion of illness as possession by a punishing spirit perhaps what Receveur, in the poem quoted at the beginning of this essay, refers to as "small still-born terrors"jibes well with the twentieth-century notion of possession by a traumatic memory or an idee fixe. In fact, as Herman points out, part of what makes the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder so difficult is the stigma that attaches to its victims"

The ancient Greeks thought that words could take away evil disease-causing spirits. It's fascinating that Burner and Rogers belief in the healing power of words mimics such an old belief. Yet is also correct. 

Misunderstood

I remember being lost in Manhattan, I was going to my writing program and I had made a wrong turn. I was on an avenue with small expensive looking boutiques on every corner. It was cold, so I thought it'd be a good idea to walk into the store. I'd make a call and ask for directions. I walked in and before my foot even touched the red carpet (cornballs) everyone turned to look at me and quickly looked away. I froze, unsure if I should leave the store or wander around and eventually make my call. The owner, I'm not sure how I could tell, was giving me a pointed stare as I walked further into the shop. I glanced at some of the addresses and pulled out my phone. I could tell the owner was counting every second I was in the store.  I left when I got some feeling back in my fingers. She clearly didn't want me there because I didn't look like her average customers, rich, white, woman. I don't know, maybe she thought I was there to steal something. I was very awkward then when it came to situations like that.

Stories

  For a good portion of my life, there's been a central story that has described me--or you can say, has been told about me. I'm the caretaker, the good girl, the nice girl, the sometimes quiet girl, the sometimes loud girl, the careful girl and some other things. My parents don't believe in praising their kids directly, but I've found out from aunts and uncle's how much they appreciate how respectful I am.They think I'm a good kid, and I am. I've never been in any trouble, my teachers never had any reason to call home. In fact they always has good things to say about me.

I've had to be responsible as an older sister, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm still messy and disorganized. Most people don't think of those characteristics going together.

In college I have a friend who think I'm bold, I've never been described as that before. She think I come out and say what I'm thinking. Which I guess is true compared to everyone else I've met here in Ithaca. We ask a lot of direct question in the Bronx, I sometimes feel people in Ithaca are annoyingly polite. It gives off vibes of disingenuousness, but that's just my opinion. I like this new characterization I've been given and sometimes find myself trying to live up to that description when I'm around her.

There are things I don't do because of the story my parents tell about me, even though I am far away from home. I'm still an older sister, setting an example even when my younger siblings aren't watching. There are things I don't do because of the stories I've been told of the unlucky ones, the ones who face the consequences their friends got away with.

Maybe it's a Ghanaian thing but I look at some of these kids who are willing to climb rocks and jump from high places. And I wonder a bit aghast, how are they so carefree?  Do they not have parents who care about them? It's been ingrained in me that I'm not just living for myself, This rugged American individualism doesn't apply to me. Ghanaians, well at least my family, understand that you live for family. What if I was to die? Who would take care of my parents in their old age? What would the kids do? All the love and money and investment my parents have poured into me would die with me, a waste. Fair or not it's all up to me. No one has to tell me this, It's the story I tell myself.

Warnock

           Warnock writes, “Indirection is the way we find direction; only rarely do we live by the straight and narrow, travel he direct route, or know where we’re going before we begin. Ours are not single-copy, single-voice, or single-identity lives” (46).

   I usually write without a clear idea in mind; I'm usually driven by a feeling or an idea I want to get across. But it's usually not enough to drive the story forward. For example, I might want to write a story about how people fail to communicate with each other.  And I might think of a scenario which depicts that idea and is worthy of a story but I won't have any specific characters in mind, a setting or much of a plot. Most of the time I give up. But when I do choose to write on, I somehow fill in the spaces as I go along. When I do have a set story in mind it almost always changes by becoming bigger or more specific than I anticipated. I've always thought that (and I know this is going to sound horribly cliche)  the stories find the author. I've always had the theory that the kind of story an author writes successfully can only be written by that author because it is written from their unique imagination. Everyone sees the world slightly different and what might appeal to me to write about won't appeal to another author. We all have subjects we feel we need to write about.

Do you believe writing and reading are critical to our ability to live? What kinds of things have you written to cope? And do you think that there is room, in academic spaces, for this kind of writing (writing that focuses more on revision and process,   writing as a strategic tool to help us better manage our lives versus writing as product... written  to rest at its deadline)?

I don't think that reading and writing are essential to our lives. People lived perfectly fulfilling lives without doing either but I do believe they greatly improve our understanding of the self and the world. I've been in poetry and creative writing classes that encouraged revision but of course we needed to turn something in at the end of class. I've had teachers who've reminded me to keep revising beyond the end of the assignment. Have I done so? That's another story. The kind of writing that calls for revision and rewriting has a place in the creative arts but I don't see scientists embracing writing as a tool to help them manage their lives.

Warnock explains, “For years, I remembered not my father’s encouragement about my writing, but his warning that I put my family first. By identifying and untangling the threads and by retelling the stories, I can create new patterns and in part rewrite my life”(45).  Warnock seems to be speaking to the process of selective re-examination:  of finally being able to take the microscope into our own hands in order to zoom in and focus on a different part of the slide. Can we,  in revision, symbolically, rewrite our lives?  How and why or why not?

I honestly don't understand Warnock when she talks about using writing to re-write life. The examples given in the chapter examines people using writing to affirm their hopes or using writing to heal. "I have inherited her name, but I don't want to inherit her place by the window." Could she have thought that and achieved it without writing it down? Of course but is her sentiment more concrete because she wrote it down? I think so. 

Do you think, to some extent, this might be partially the point of writing – to find common ground, to imagine that we are not so different from one another in that we are, each and every one of us, fallible? How have you embraced the ‘comic corrective’ in your own writing? And how have you rejected it?

I think writing helps us see how human we all are. I've always written from the point of view of someone who is misunderstood, someone who is clearly different in some way and I've attempted to tell their story. I write about characters I like or identify with. I've always given character traits I dislike to characters I try to depict as the antagonists, in that way I reject the comic corrective. 

Finding my voice

I've grown a lot as a person, my voice reflects that.

It's funny, as a youngster I remember having trouble reading. In 6th grade my classmates called me a bookworm. I didn't mind. My head was always in a book because it was middle school and everyone sucked. I preferred reading about other people's problems, it helped me escape my own.  I was blown away with how well the authors I read could create another world that was capable of completely immersing all my senses. I wanted to do what they did.

As the oldest of three, recently four. I've been playing the role of caretaker for as long as I can remember. As an older sister I've always known what it was like to order people around and be in control. I had a voice in the house. My parents were always working so it was Lashanda this, and Lashanda that. Once I was outside alone, I was the dorky little girl with few friends and no power. I was quiet. I was quiet when my parents were home. I was only myself when I was alone with my siblings. Fast forward to High School. I was now the "smart" chubby, dark-skinned black girl with few friends. I read a lot, but never dared to write anything. I thought of writing as a talent some were born with and others admired. I joined an after school writing program, which made me think writing was something that could be worked on. I didn't write much because I was so intimidated by what my writing skills were compared to those I read and hoped to emulate.

I've always had very strong opinions about certain matters. When it comes to blatant injustice there is no way I won't speak up. Thinking back to how upset I would get in elementary school when one of my classmates would skip me in line I realize I've always had a strong feeling that things should be fair. They would tell me to relax, we were all going to the same place--but it wasn't their skipping that bothered me, it was their disregard of my dignity. Of course in 5th grade I didn't have the words to explain it.  Because I wasn't considered important the popular kids who were always the one doing the skipping, didn't think it was necessary to ask my permission before they slid in front of me. That's exactly how the poor and anyone who isn't a rich white cis-gendered male is treated in society for the most part. What I'm trying to say I've found my voice in politics. And it fearless when it comes to such matters.

Honestly I don't read as much anymore, college that ironic effect. I don't pursue  all the ideas that flicker around in my head, and they have a way of utterly disappearing. I'm still intimidated. 

Reflection on Shame

             Shame is something that's done to you. Something that happens to you, or something you do that you later regret. Shame happens. It's a feeling that creeps into the body, unwelcome but heavy. I find that since writing is an extremely active action, it eliminates the passivity out of any story the writer is recalling. Even if the writer is telling a story about how they did absolutely nothing, the writer is claiming the action of nothing by writing about it. And that's something. The writer chooses what style to write about the event--there are all these choices that come with writing. Writing is all about agency. Even though it may not be the writer's intention to share what they experienced, they may be writing for themselves writing still somehow becomes a social act, no matter how personal it is. People read to feel less alone; when we read we connect to other experiences. A writer writing about their personal experiences can be speaking someone else's truth.

          Writing allows people to analyze their experience in a way that no other art form can. A writer can write ten pages about what was going on in their minds during a ten second span. It allows us to expand on intricate, delicate emotions and concepts. A reader can sense the writers mental state based on what they write. When I shared my personal essay in class, people pointed out things I didn't realize myself. People thought that I had misplaced guilt, guilt that I thought was deserved. It's interesting how people get different readings of the same work. I think that has to due with people bringing up a part of themselves into what they read. 

Gere

          Writing serves many purposes. The self is political, people make up society. A person's gender, race, and sexual identity is political. So writing about personal experiences still manages to be political. In Gere's piece she discusses coming to the realization that writing could be done with people and reading could be shared. I'm surprised it took her so long to realize half the fun of reading it is discussing what you've read with other people. I understand where she's coming from. A lot of people think of reading as an escape from their lives, a way to go elsewhere. I read when I want to leave my life and it's magical. I can be immersed in someone else's problems and go through the ups and downs of their lives while I'm lying down in bed. Ten years can pass in two hours, it's a sort of emotional time travel when I think about it. After I'm done with most books I feel as I've gone through such a journey. I've only recently began to discuss books maturely. Before I'd randomly find out someone had read a book I loved and we'd gush about how tremendously good the book was. My writing classes have forced me to intelligently unpack what's going on in a book. That kind of work, I'm finding, gives books more value. Hearing another interpretation of something you've read helps one realize that there are many ways to look at the text you've enjoyed just through your interpretation. Someone else interpreted it differently and loved it as well, the same text and that's pretty amazing. 

             Gere talks about the trend of autobiographical and personal writing leading to a more social and public context. Although I can't think of any specifics I know that essay writing (personal essay) usually starts of personal and broadens to the social or wider context. Joan Didion does that a lot. What do I mean by that? By that I guess I mean connecting the self with the larger picture. 

Shame

 

I have family I don’t talk to. And they’re not just distant relatives. They’re not the distant relatives everyone has; the kind you’re really not supposed to talk to but once maybe twice a year. I have family I don’t talk to, family that I should probably live with. Family I should love like the family I do live with and love unreasonably. My mom, the one who raised me, did not give birth to me. A detail we’ve all easily forgotten. I’m the oldest, the siblings I live with have always had me in their lives. And what child thinks about what came before them, before they came into existence? So questions are not asked about why I look nothing like mommy.

I have family I don’t talk to. Two sisters and a brother that I put out of my head right after third grade and didn’t think about until the summer of 8th grade. I went to visit. In their living room was a picture of us all together. Jane had driven up with the kids from Ohio to visit a friend in New York. I was in sixth grade maybe, we met at the mall, ate Chinese and and took a group picture-- a family picture. I had more or less forgotten about that day but there was the picture, framed in the living room. There was a couple of pictures of me in the third grade. I spent that year with them.

Jane let me know that Sherrie, my sister, went around showing people pictures of me. She wanted everyone to know she had an older sister. There were years where I didn’t even think about her. But I was young, I was eight, eight. Tensions between Jane, the woman who had given birth to me, and my dad made it so she never called the house. There were siblings in the Bronx to watch and play with. There was homework to do and shows to watch, and I was young.

We didn’t grow up together. The closest Sherrie, Sunshine, William and I got to love was familiarity. After the summer in eighth grade Jane reached out to me my sophomore year of college via Facebook. I guess she lost my number. I wasn't mad. I actually felt guilty and thought she was justified. In the summer of 8th grade she let me know it was either my dad or her. I went back to the Bronx. I'm very much an absentee father when it comes to my other siblings. I'm working on it.