The Truth About Why I Write About PTSD

I’ve been a writer for my entire life–I’ve written journals, diaries, anonymous blogs, record reviews in magazines, personal essays in Huffington Post, and a lot about handbags. I’ve always wondered why I write, and what has drawn me to it. It’s always felt like a release–like getting words on a page makes everything feel a little less horrible and hard.

In the last year, I’ve challenged myself to write about my life–both what I’m living right now, and the past. It’s hard to write about the past, but I feel an immense drive to tell the stories of danger and fear that engulfed my teenage years–the stories that brought me to who I am today.

Writing so openly about something I know others expect me to keep in the dark feels enormously freeing.

Finally, something I can control.

As a society, we make subjects of trauma (especially sexual and domestic violence) defenseless and voiceless, which makes them even more susceptible to pain.

I guess some may call it “oversharing,” especially because I write on the internet under my own name, but to me, my vulnerability feels like strength, of owning who I am and not being ashamed about any of it.

Sharing my life so candidly is hard for a lot of people to understand, especially for those who call my openness…