Have You Ever Considered Writing A Book About Your Childhood Trauma?

[breakthecycle777]

Hello everyone, have any of you ever considered writing a book about your childhood trauma? I did some shadow work and decided to self publish my first my own book. I’m still on a healing journey, because I’m aware that it’s a lifelong journey. I do suffer from C-PTSD, bipolar, anxiety and depression and I'm trying my best to manage everything.

Peace and love!

 

[user27357]

of course, doesn't everyone consider writing a book? shouldnt it be a book covering a subject you know and can write truthfully about?
lack of objectivity will be a problem if CPTSD is the topic..

 

[arfie]

hello break. welcome to the forum.

i have 4 file boxes filled with therapy journals. hundreds of thousands of mostly handwritten pages. i'm quite sure there is at least one book in there, but i keep having psychotic breaks when i attempt to go digging for it (them?).

 

[Charbella]

Nope, but I do have a therapist who feels I should. Personally it would have to be published in a different language in a different country under a pen name.

 

[breakthecycle777]

hello break. welcome to the forum.

i have 4 file boxes filled with therapy journals. hundreds of thousands of mostly handwritten pages. i'm quite sure there is at least one book in there, but i keep having psychotic breaks when i attempt to go digging for it (them?).

Thank you so much. I'm happy to be here in this space. I understand how triggering all of that can be.

Nope, but I do have a therapist who feels I should. Personally it would have to be published in a different language in a different country under a pen name.

Right. I wrote mine anonymously and changed all of the names to avoid defamation and sabotage.

 

[Lost in the Woods]

I can’t tell you how many times I have been told I should write a book. My abuse started when I was preverbal and by the time I was 9 I was running away regularly and being thrown in juvenile hall when I was caught as an uncontrollable juvenile. At 12 I ran away to the Summer of Love in San Francisco followed by my last trip to juvenile hall. At my detention hearing I told the judge I didn’t care where they sent me, I wasn’t going back home. And I didn’t until after my mother’s suicide.

My whole life has been one adventure after another, racing sailboats and motorcycles, singlehanded ocean sailing, traveling the world with no money, long distance bicycle touring all unsupported and often off road with many desert crossings and on and on. I still do most of that stuff. I believe there was something about a challenge that appealed to me. Perhaps it was a matter of proving to myself that I wasn’t the worthless self image I had (have). Perhaps one of the biggest challenges was my decision to go back to school and become an attorney. I did it but I lived in absolute poverty to do it. I lived on a small sailboat I could not stand up in for four years to get through school. I had no car and rode a bicycle everywhere. I never knew if I was going to be able to make my next tuition payment and food was a lower priority. One time I had a break from school but no money so I sailed out the Golden Gate and turned left for Mexico with nothing but tortillas and beans. I had 3 weeks so I sailed to Ensenada and back, a great way to kill some time. After law school I passed the bar on the first try and already had a job. People who grew up the way I did simply don’t do what I did.

The adventures continued. My latest challenge is dealing with my rather recently diagnosed PTSD which is turning into quite another adventure.

I have always told people who suggested I write a book that I was more inclined to forgetting it all rather than preserving it for posterity. In regards to dealing with the PTSD I am diving in head first. The one thing I know with certainty is that when life throws a major upheaval at me, when I emerge on the other side of it, life will be different in a positive way that was unimaginable to me before the upheaval. So I am like bring it on.

 

[Lost in the Woods]

of course, doesn't everyone consider writing a book? shouldnt it be a book covering a subject you know and can write truthfully about?
lack of objectivity will be a problem if CPTSD is the topic..

I am not sure objectivity would be a concern. Each of us have our own unique histories. The trauma would not be the central focus. It would be your reaction and life experience prior to treatment and then the treatment and hopefully an unsugar coated discussion of your healing process. Readers with a trauma history would see themselves in the pre treatment portions and then be inspired by the recovery journey. There is value in that.

 

[Captain Barnacles]

No. I really don't think there's market for more of that sort of thing.

A kid has an otherwise normal childhood then gets raped a bunch of times.

It's not very exciting, is it?

I am, however, writing a book that uses the many, many traumatic experiences of my adult life as an inspiration.

 

[Weemie]

People tell me often that I should, but I am too paranoid of reprisals from those who would know I am talking about them. I have to consider my mom and my family. It would put them at a non-zero risk of harm, and I can't take that chance. It's hard enough to even seriously talk about what happened online, I fight with my paranoia constantly.

 

[amicableDog6980]

Hello everyone, have any of you ever considered writing a book about your childhood trauma? I did some shadow work and decided to self publish my first my own book. I’m still on a healing journey, because I’m aware that it’s a lifelong journey. I do suffer from C-PTSD, bipolar, anxiety and depression and I'm trying my best to manage everything.

Peace and love!

I'm curious to read your book. What is it called or where can it be accessed?

I've considered writing about my childhood trauma many times but how to make it coherent and interesting in a story format rather than a ramble emotional mess and trigger myself all over the place... haven't figured out that part yet.

 

[Friday]

I'm curious to read your book. What is it called or where can it be accessed?

Mod Note : The member cannot answer your Q without breaking one of veeeeery few site rules (no self promo or advertising). >>> Community Constitution

• No Self-Promotion or Advertising: Members are allowed and encouraged to recommend anything that has helped them on their journey to recovery. However, no member is allowed to promote themselves or their web content in any way, nor is it acceptable to post advertisements for goods, products, or services.

 

[deno]

Writing about the past can be a way to process and release it, but it can also keep it alive in ways that aren’t always healthy. I’ve wrestled with this myself—how much reflection is healing, and how much is just re-opening wounds?

For some, writing is closure. It’s a way to lay everything out, make sense of it, and then step forward with a clearer mind. For others, it can be a trap, a way of staying tied to something that should have been left behind. I think the difference comes down to intent—are you writing to move through it, or are you writing to stay in it?

I’ve come to realize that real walking away doesn’t mean forgetting. It means reaching a place where the past isn’t controlling you anymore. If writing gets you there, then maybe it’s worth it. But if it keeps you circling the same pain without resolution, then maybe it’s just another way of holding on.