Throughout this wonderful introduction, I
noticed that the author used words such as "control" or
"agency" when talking about healing. When you’ve been through
something traumatic, whether it’s the death of someone you love, a disease, an
addiction, some form of abuse, or even witnessing something horrible, this
specific event consumes you. It’s all you think about, it keeps you up at
night, and even if you can get to sleep, you’ll awake from the nightmares that
inhabit your mind. However, the way to understand healing, and what I think the
author wants to leave us with, is that it’s “gaining control over that which
has engulfed us.” (5). Becoming a personal agent in not letting the event take
over you. Re-externalization is another way to free us of the event, by
“transfer[ing] it to another outside oneself and then tak[ing] it back again.”
(6). And that’s exactly what writing helps in doing. By writing about our
struggles and past horrors, we place the agency back into ourselves, the
control is placed back into the very hands that hold the pen to paper. We
“exert a measure of control over that which we can never control – the past.”
(7). I really loved that line the best, because it’s so true. We control how we
write it, we control what’s said, how it’s delivered, when it’s delivered. We
take control over what happened to us, which aids in healing from it.
I thought it was interesting when the author
talked about Freud’s “seduction theory” on page 9 and continuing on page 10. How
he eventually disregarded his theory and “plac[ed] agency of responsibility for
psychic pain directly onto the ‘victim’” (10). Comparing it to modern times, it’s
not so different from how some men (and women) victim blame female rape
survivors when their stories come into the light. “Oh, it’s because her skirt
was too short, she was looking for attention, she was ‘begging’ for it.” I feel
like Freud has caused more harm than good, especially in learning this.
I would like our class to delve more into the
idea of how writing about the self can teach us “to blame [ourselves] because
[we] accept the ideology which locates the source of all action and value in
the individual self…” (12). I thought it was an extremely interesting passage
but also a bit confusing to follow.
