Write from the scar, not the wound

I’m not sure when the idea of writing a memoir first occurred to me. Perhaps it was a fleeting thought while I was still living in Sweden. It was certainly a working idea once I moved back to the US.

Early in 2017, I was talking to a friend and mentioned to him the idea of writing my story.

“You’re not ready to do that,” he told me.

Time, space, and healing needed to be completed first. He was right.

At the time, however, I fully believed that time, space, and healing would be concluded by the end of the summer. Much like coming to a finish line. By September, I’d be done. Healed. I was wrong. 

I was naive. I was naive about domestic violence. I was naive about the time it would take to recover from it. Recovery takes an enormous amount of time. And a lot of work. Some never make it through the work. Others thrive after recovery. It’s my intention to join the latter group.

I believe narcissistic abuse is one of the worst types of trauma a person can experience. This is because the attacks are personal. And unlike trauma experienced from a random event, narc abuse is repeated –– over and over, refined through time, until it becomes a very sharp blade. Right from the beginning, the victim is unknowingly targeted and groomed for the experience by the person who claims to love them most. It’s intentional and insidious.

“We have to choose carefully where we do our truth telling. One I remind people is something my friend, Nadia Bolz-Weber, told me: If your going to share widely, make sure you’re sharing from your scars, not your open wounds.”

Glennon Doyle Melton

As I spent these last months thinking about writing this story, the words of Glennon Doyle Melton played in my head.

“I wrote the book, Love Warrior, and rewrote it, and with every paragraph asked myself: How is this not just about me, but about the reader? About all of us? How can i turn my personal story into something universal? I sifted through my own pain and mined it for gold to share with others,” she said.

So am I ready to write now? I think so. It’s been two and a half years since I had that conversation with my friend. I understand now what he meant and I have spent a lot of time being quiet.