Take Back the Night was a beautiful display of forging ahead with trauma; the open discussion of the ways in which healing is not linear and individuals are more than what happens to them was something I had largely never experienced outside of one-on-one discussion. Acknowledging the ways in which we can help each other absolutely alleviated some pain, though having to face the fact that I hardly know anyone without trauma from abuse presented more, even if it was of a different sort. I can say that events like this, that present the positives of therapy, work deeply in conjunction in my mind with all of the work toward reclamation and self-diagnosis. Disability envisioned as an identity rather than a deficit, and therapy offered as support rather than a cure; individuals with trauma as survivors rather than victims, and medical practitioners as individuals that validate you rather than subject you to more trauma through incessant evaluations. It is the side of psychology I like to see; the side that encourages individual voice, agency, and identity.
Natalie Illum’s poetry really ate at me; it kept entirely with the theme of my earlier points about the widespread (and often cyclical) nature of trauma. The story of the open mic in particular made me simultaneously full of feeling and hollow of thought. There is something about the communication of trauma by and for survivors that moves so differently. She made a comment between pieces about the compacting of physical and emotional abuse and the emergence of language such as gaslighting to help individuals communicate their experiences, that furthered my feelings on that. The reality that language as it stood could not match the implications of toxic actions hits really hard, but knowing that survivors have formed and popularized their interpretations of the acts they will likely never get closure on hits much harder. When she asked us to consider the prompts of what abuse taught and what surviving taught, I was terribly perplexed, but when she read the piece she described as her response to the prompt, I felt more at ease. So often trauma and disability narratives are asked to veer into that realm of adversity as enlightening, but this was not that; this was about finding your own feelings after being denied access to them for so long, rather than finding ways to make your scars pretty for the world. This is the first time in a really long time that I have witnessed wounds being reopened and rediscovered for reasons outside of inspiration porn/trauma porn/poverty porn and it hurt but it also sat really well with me.
Side note: read/listen to/support Tanaya Winder’s poetry! Her expression of healing is incredibly moving, and she is terribly supportive and sweet!
WC: 459
I pledge: Rebekah Stone
