Telling Our Stories Is Critical To The Journey of Healing

I attended a lecture this last week given by Tim Wise, who is an incredibly knowledgeable antiracism/diversity trainer. His talks tend to bounce around from subject to subject in a catch-all sort of way -- a style he terms as "similar to jazz improvisation." An individual leaves his presentations with their head swimming with new ideas and concepts and different ways to view the world around; simply stated, it's a pleasure and joy to hear him speak.

There were two things in particular that he discussed (among, as noted, a wide range of subjects related to diversity) that resonated with some thoughts that had been swirling around inside my head for several days since I had seen the 'new version' of the Cinema Paradiso DVD. I had seen the shorter version of the movie several years ago when it was first issued and had greatly enjoyed the story, which is why I had wanted to see it again. The story is a cross between a tribute to the joy of movie-making and the pain and frustration caused by unrequited love. For a long time, I've considered Cinema Paradiso to be one of the great (recent) movies about the love of cinema, in the same way that I've considered Babette's Feast to be one of my very favorite movies about the joy of cooking. Both, interestingly, are also about intimate love, the first a focus upon a heterosexual couple and the second about the love of friends.

Before I lose the 'thread', let me get back to the connection between Tim Wise and the movie. When I was watching Cinema Paradiso, I was struck with how the 'smitten love' between Salvatore and Elena was a kind of infatuation that I had always wanted to have when I was a younger man. I had always wanted to have a 'special girl' who considered me to be 'her special man' and who wanted to 'build a life with me.' But that story, while quite beautiful in the movie, wasn't my story no matter how much I had wanted it to be. And so, I had been thinking about how one tells their story in a way that 'makes sense of one's life' and 'gives one hope for the future'.

Tim Wise, in his lecture, talked about how "it is important that people tell their stories." In particular, he was talking about stories of discrimination and racial profiling, but he was also telling the audience how the method of telling one's story is important to the process of healing. Additionally, Tim took note of a favorite quote of his from the writer James Baldwin -- that each of us has to "earn our death" -- and what the writer meant by that. He said James Baldwin was referring to the process of living one's life in such a manner that, upon leaving this life, one had made a positive difference in the world, i.e. that an individual had 'earned their death' by living an ethical life that, in large part, involved struggling with the negative aspects of human interaction.

I've been 'sitting' with those two concepts -- the importance of 'telling one's story' and the importance of 'earning one's death' -- since his presentation last week. They strike me as critical issues in the journey of healing from sexual trauma, as well as healing from -- and moving beyond -- racial discrimination. The 'process of healing and recovery' is both about healing the wound caused by the trauma and then doing what one needs to do to move beyond the trauma. I'm reminded of a favorite quote by Margaret Young that I attach to my 'signature' when I send out email:

Often people attempt to live their lives backward: they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do, in order to have what you want.

As a young man who was trying to heal from the ravages of the physical torture and sexual trauma that I experienced as a child, I always wanted to be involved in a story that was more 'normal', more 'mainstream' in terms of the American Dream -- you know, dating a woman with whom I had a mutually loving and caring relationship, having it evolve into a long-term intimacy, then possibly having it lead to marriage. But it wasn't to be (or at least, it didn't happen to me, not at all in the way I had envisioned). And without going into particulars, let me say that what is important 'in the telling of my story' is being able to have a degree of personal emotional comfort with the way the narrative [of my life] did play itself out.

Indeed, in my late 30's, I did meet a woman with whom I had a very long-term unrequited infatuation [we were and remain platonic friends], and in the last several years, in my late 50's, I have met a woman with whom I've finally been able to manifest the kind of intimate, equitable, long-term, mutually loving and supportive relationship that I have desired for most of my life. In other words, as one of the characters in Cinema Paradiso notes "life isn't like the movies", no matter how one hopes that we can 'spin out' such a narrative in 'real life'.

As in the Margaret Young quote above, I, like all survivors of trauma, have had to go through the journey of discovering how to be who I really am, then doing what needs to be done, in order to have what I have desired and wanted throughout my life. Not that the point of 'having what you want' comes all at once or quite in the manner that you theorized or dreamt that it would. Life has a way of producing the story in the manner that it deems fit -- incorporating, among many others, the 'stuff happens' and 'actions often lead to unintended consequences' scenarios.

The first step -- discovering who one really is -- is probably the most difficult. Beyond the torture and sexual trauma, who is one's self? Parents often say to their children "just be yourself", but who is that!! As John Bradshaw pointed out in Bradshaw On: The Family, most Americans have no 'independent' sense of themselves, separate from the imprint of their parents, until around the age of 35. But it's also critical to make that 'discovery', to 'know thyself'. Or, as a close therapist friend of mine says "be yourself -- everyone else is taken". We're all unique, good, bad or indifferent, so it's important to manifest the best we can be.

The next step is 'doing what needs to be done', and that's where the Baldwin quote about 'earning one's death' comes into play. While it is important to heal one's own life (and often that alone consumes an egregious amount of time and energy), it is also important, if at all possible, to 'heal the wound of the world' around oneself. For me, that's where my work with the Mariposa Men's Wellness Institute is manifested. It took many years of arduous and painful work to progress in my own healing (and that process will not stop until I pass from this life); simply making use of that work for myself is, for me, insufficient. I feel a strong desire to help others who have had a similar painful journey to 'move forward to the next steps' of a healing path. Other very dedicated people have assisted me in my healing. I want to 'pass forward' those lessons learned in such a way that I can help others and 'earn my death'.

We all pass from this life eventually (as is said "there's only one ticket in and one ticket out"). When I was a younger man in the pit of my victimization, I, like many sexual trauma survivors, often contemplated suicide as the 'only way out' of the malaise of my life. As my healing has progressed and become clearer and more mature, I now realize that I must 'earn my own process of dying' by living my life to the fullest, as best I can manifest that. Which doesn't mean that I will "have everything I want" [far from it] -- even if I am who I am and do what I need to do -- but it does mean that I am the master of my own narrative, of how I tell my story, even if the details of the story are beyond my control. I can't 'know' where my story will go, but as is true of all trauma survivors I am in a better position, as I continue to heal, to impact the journey that I'm taking. We were, indeed, 'out of control' as children; with recovery, that doesn't have to be true for the remainder of our story.