Okay, so there's this thing that I've been doing lately. It's taken years of work, but I'm really getting good at it now.
I realized that my story was too long. Waaay too long.
I am the sort that ruminates a lot. I would replay the stories of my traumas in my head, and put them into words. What I'm saying is that I talk to myself a lot, both silently and out loud when I'm alone. And so I would go over them again and again, and every time it would just take me through the same horror show emotionally. Originally, it was non-stop, especially when the trauma was actually happening, which only makes complete sense.
But even years later, I was still obsessed with my stories. Again, it doesn't help that I have two additional personalities who spawned in order to deal with those traumatic periods. Both of them are consumed with what happened to make them real. However, as decades went by, I was stacking up new experiences and memories about all sorts of things, both good and bad, and coming up with new stories about those events, and I noticed that I was starting to have some trouble remembering individual details... And crucially, the stories started to bore me. Once I realized it truly was my alts telling their stories again and again, from a first, second and third person narrative (depending on the story)... It really started to bore me. A lot. I started paring down the story, almost subconsciously, because I just wanted to get through them faster and get on with my day...
I had work to do, and it couldn't wait for me to go through a total flashback. I got really good at working despite flashbacks... And then I started thinking.. if this is boring me, how excruciatingly boring would it be to another person? I mean, yeah.. Therapists are paid for this stuff, and codependent partners eat it up like popcorn. But to the average person, who had all their own stuff to worry about... How boring must the entire thing really be?
So I began making a conscious effort to pare the stories down, like you would when editing a novel. Stephen King talks about it a lot in his book "On Writing".. How no matter how big you want it to be, there comes a time when you really have to just start cutting things out. Otherwise your story just goes nowhere, and nobody will want to read it. (Considering the size of some of his books, that's amazing.)
I would edit out passages of my rumination again and again, I would simply state to myself like I would if I had to tell the story in the most concise way. So an hour long retelling of my early trauma started getting shorter. I just started glossing over some facts and events with simpler statements. I stopped thinking of Every. Little. Trauma. and just stuck to the idea of a "Greatest Hits" album. I began eliminating parts of the story over the course of time and hundreds of ruminations. It took FOREVER. But eventually I started to make some serious headway. A rumination will begin sometimes and I'll just acknowledge it.. "I was hurt very badly and it sucked a lot" instead of spending 3 hours caught in a flashback. Sometimes I just write it out on a piece of paper, because if I start going overboard my hand will start to wear out. Which is a clear sign that I need to edit some more.
Nowadays I've reduced the story to a few simple statements in my head.. "I had a violent childhood, and there was some permanent damage involved... "I got into a really bad relationship once... "God failed me, and I'm still kinda angry about it." Things like that.. Summations of my stories, clear, concise and above all: Short. Things I could tell somebody without boring their socks off.
I have my trauma diary for big long stories (and how), but in daily life I just keep it short. I found that it helps me a lot.
Does anybody else do this?
I realized that my story was too long. Waaay too long.
I am the sort that ruminates a lot. I would replay the stories of my traumas in my head, and put them into words. What I'm saying is that I talk to myself a lot, both silently and out loud when I'm alone. And so I would go over them again and again, and every time it would just take me through the same horror show emotionally. Originally, it was non-stop, especially when the trauma was actually happening, which only makes complete sense.
But even years later, I was still obsessed with my stories. Again, it doesn't help that I have two additional personalities who spawned in order to deal with those traumatic periods. Both of them are consumed with what happened to make them real. However, as decades went by, I was stacking up new experiences and memories about all sorts of things, both good and bad, and coming up with new stories about those events, and I noticed that I was starting to have some trouble remembering individual details... And crucially, the stories started to bore me. Once I realized it truly was my alts telling their stories again and again, from a first, second and third person narrative (depending on the story)... It really started to bore me. A lot. I started paring down the story, almost subconsciously, because I just wanted to get through them faster and get on with my day...
I had work to do, and it couldn't wait for me to go through a total flashback. I got really good at working despite flashbacks... And then I started thinking.. if this is boring me, how excruciatingly boring would it be to another person? I mean, yeah.. Therapists are paid for this stuff, and codependent partners eat it up like popcorn. But to the average person, who had all their own stuff to worry about... How boring must the entire thing really be?
So I began making a conscious effort to pare the stories down, like you would when editing a novel. Stephen King talks about it a lot in his book "On Writing".. How no matter how big you want it to be, there comes a time when you really have to just start cutting things out. Otherwise your story just goes nowhere, and nobody will want to read it. (Considering the size of some of his books, that's amazing.)
I would edit out passages of my rumination again and again, I would simply state to myself like I would if I had to tell the story in the most concise way. So an hour long retelling of my early trauma started getting shorter. I just started glossing over some facts and events with simpler statements. I stopped thinking of Every. Little. Trauma. and just stuck to the idea of a "Greatest Hits" album. I began eliminating parts of the story over the course of time and hundreds of ruminations. It took FOREVER. But eventually I started to make some serious headway. A rumination will begin sometimes and I'll just acknowledge it.. "I was hurt very badly and it sucked a lot" instead of spending 3 hours caught in a flashback. Sometimes I just write it out on a piece of paper, because if I start going overboard my hand will start to wear out. Which is a clear sign that I need to edit some more.
Nowadays I've reduced the story to a few simple statements in my head.. "I had a violent childhood, and there was some permanent damage involved... "I got into a really bad relationship once... "God failed me, and I'm still kinda angry about it." Things like that.. Summations of my stories, clear, concise and above all: Short. Things I could tell somebody without boring their socks off.
I have my trauma diary for big long stories (and how), but in daily life I just keep it short. I found that it helps me a lot.
Does anybody else do this?
