A writer’s transference

MELISSA CONNELLY is an author and therapist. Her recent novel, What Was Lost, explores trauma and redemption, risk taking and self-care, shame and acceptance. Here she shares her experience as a new writer and the importance of sharing story.

My novel, What Was Lost, concerns two traumatic events in the main protagonist's life: Marti is disfigured by an accident when she’s seven years old, and at age fourteen her art teacher grooms and sexually abuses her, leading to a pregnancy. It’s a dark, disturbing journey for Marti as she confronts her history.

I’ve worked as a child therapist, but I’m no expert on trauma, any more than anyone else is. As Marti says, “Everyone has their own trauma.” No one gets through life unscarred. Of course, there are degrees; some people suffer and survive inconceivable tragedies and heartbreaks repeatedly throughout their lives. Others seem beaten down by the smallest of occurrences. We sometimes call these people complainers. But there’s no reason to judge someone’s inability to get back up. Even if what’s upsetting them seems minor to us, it’s their reality; they feel what they feel. Some crumble whereas others rise. It could be because of a history of neglect, abuse, or early childhood trauma. Or it could be their chemical makeup. People can be blessed with resiliency, and others not so much. Feel lucky if you have grit; it's a kind of hell without it.

One thing my own experiences have taught me is that just like we’re doomed to repeat history if we don’t learn from it, we’re doomed to live in trauma if we don’t confront it. It can be too much to deal with initially, and sometimes we’re given the grace of shock for a while. But eventually it needs to be faced or it will linger in some deep, musty corner of your core and come out and smack you when you least expect it.

Marti tries to lessen her trauma’s impact by replicating the experience through dangerous choices she makes. This is common among sexual abuse victims: “It’s okay. Didn’t affect me. See? I did it again!” She also tries to stay with her abuser. She does this because her shame is so great that she feels safe only with him. As contrary as this seems, it’s common among victims. It’s why sexual and physical abusers are often let off the hook. She stayed with him, so it couldn't be that bad.

I’ve lived through traumatic events in my life and one of the ways I coped was to talk about the experience. The more I shared every single, perhaps hard-to-hear, little detail, the more my hurt dissipated. But Marti doesn’t have that luxury. She feels complicit in her abuse. Shame births the secret, and that secret shame is how perpetrators get away with their actions.

Someone said to me, “Your memoir is coming out?” I corrected them, “No it's a novel.” They responded, “It’s autobiographical though, right? Aren’t all first novels?” I've received many comments like that, and have felt a strong urge to correct them. There are some parallels in my life to Marti’s—I left home and high school very young, just as Marti does. But her story isn’t mine; I wasn’t sexually abused by a teacher at fourteen.

I wanted to correct this impression because I felt Marti’s shame. This realization made me sad and a little disappointed in myself. After all, I wrote the story to show there’s no shame in it. My discomfort gives me a small taste of what it’s like to walk in her shoes and now I feel a greater need to defend Marti.

Writing is cathartic even when it isn’t your story, 
because in some ways it always is. 
It's the human story.

My defense is both arrogant and unnecessary; Marti defends herself just fine. After burying her experiences for thirty long years, she faces them. She grows from victim to survivor. And now that Marti is launched in the world, I need to go on my own journey of acceptance, by allowing people to assume it’s my story. I wrote it and so I own it. I’m growing alongside Marti into a new understanding of the issues I wrote about—and of myself—as I advocate for the troubling, unsettling book I’ve written. Writing is cathartic even when it isn’t your story, because in some ways it always is. It's the human story.