Thursday, 19 November 2020

Writing about Leaving

 
In my last writing workshop with my fellow first year PhD students, we discussed “the uncanny” triggered by reading Bennett and Royle’s introduction(1) to it as a concept and analysis of Freud’s list of things that make us feel unwholesome/unhomelike. Perfect for Halloween.
 
I began to think about whether there would or could be instances of the uncanny in the book I have started. One incident, that happened to me on the day I left my controlling and abusive marriage stood out. My book is a fictional account of domestic abuse, and particularly coercive control, and while loosely based on some of my own experiences, weaves other narratives into the story. Sometimes I write in the first person and sometimes in the third, but eventually it will all be a third person perspective. I decided I would begin to write about that day.
 
It is interesting in that I have talked (to friends, counsellors, therapists, solicitors) about many aspects of my experience, to reduce the trauma and record events for the legal record, but I have largely ignored the emotional impact of that day, simply regarding it as a day that happened, was difficult, but achieved it’s aim. But of course it was both pivotal, the ending of one thing and the starting of another, and traumatic.
 
I found as I began to write about it, that my narrative sounded like something a child – maybe of primary school age - would write. It listed events – this happened, and then this happened, and then this… I went back to edit and fill in the details but it still felt like a black-and-white outline drawing waiting to be coloured in. I was intrigued that I was finding this so hard to write about and yet, why was I so surprised? It was a highly anxious and adrenaline-filled day.
 
Finally I had a discussion with a friend who is a writer and poet, who studied the MA in Creative Writing alongside me and is a survivor herself, and sent her what I had written so far. Her insight suddenly freed me up to write creatively about it. I felt like a block had cleared.
 
I am sure it will require considerable editing as time goes by and the project develops, but I now feel this piece is on it’s way and am content that it’s where it needs to be for now. Writing as therapy; it’s uncanny.

(1) Bennett, Andrew and Nicholas Royale (2016) Chapter Five: The Uncanny in An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory, Abingdon, Taylor & Francis Group.

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