From Trauma to Writing

This was a really thought provoking piece, and despite it's length I really enjoyed reading it. Marian M. MacCurdy writes in such a way that makes understanding the human mind relatively simple. In the beginning, when she began talking about the academia around personal essay, I got really worried that this essay would sound a lot like many of our other readings. It was interesting how she talked about the iconic image, and related it back to the psychology of trauma recovery. First, MacCurdy talks about the importance of the iconic image in the context of personal essay. It is, she argues, the essential element to any good piece of writing (poetry, personal essay, fiction). Image is ultimately the best way to describe a story (compared to narrative). MacCurdy also suggests that image, or iconic image, is also a valuable tool in the process of healing. It is imagery that gives a person control over the situation by allowing them to reconstruct the scene or traumatic event. In a comment about writing and healing MacCurdy also suggests (with reference to Wendy Bishop)  --in response to Lester Faigley's point that personal essay is no more honest than the academic essay-- that the classroom (and largely the academy) is an appropriate environment for self exploration and self exploration is an important part of healing. She also makes an extremely good claim about the unearthing of the self, and I was really fond of how well she thought out this aspect. Unearthing of the self means to"move from the stories about their lives to the stories in their lives" (161), or move past the quickened narrative, past the summary of ones life and to look into what is currently happening.
When MacCurdy began to discuss the psychology of trauma and memory she helped me understand my own traumatic experiences. I was unaware of how the brain works in regards to stress hormones and imprinting. It makes so much sense now. She explains how whenever we have a traumatic experience stress hormones are released and imprint the images into our brain (164). This explains certain flashbacks I've had from traumatic experiences, or how whenever someone asked me "what happened"I can only explain what it looked like and how I tried running from it. What I'm referring to are two experiences I had in a hospital-- my only time spent in a hospital. It was so traumatizing I felt like I was in a dream… could have been the drugs they put me on, but still it was horrifying and had a long lasting effect. I remember one instance in particular where I was watching TV with my friends and  a hospital scene came on and I had to leave the room. I got goose bumps and nearly had a panic attack. When I was hospitalized the doctors had put me on some really strong drugs to help me calm down because I was screaming at everyone and didn't want anyone to come near me. I understand why in the  interview with EMTs being against the use of the beta drug. It's horrible not knowing exactly what happened during a traumatic experience. All I have left are cloudy images and an expensive hospital bill to pay off.

question for the class: Do you find that when reconstructing a traumatic event, that you describe it in a narrative sense, or in an imagery-oriented way?