How Writing & Reading Saved My Life - 10/13/21

According to my mother, I declared I was going to be an author when I was 3 or 4. Funny how the Universe brings awareness to such things at an early age. I’ve taken a circuitous route to my current path as a writer, but I got here nonetheless.

I remember writing here and there in elementary school. I remember feeling so proud when I wrote my first book in 5th grade. I drew the pictures and bound the book with a baby blue cover peppered with flowers. I still have that book today. I continued dabbling here and there until I was in middle school. That’s when the writing began in earnest due to a change in personal circumstances.  

The age of 13 was a pivotal age for me. For some reason, I became more aware of Mom and Dad’s constant fighting, or more truthfully, their fighting had intensified so much that it couldn’t be ignored. Dad would slap and push Mom. She would cry and scream, trying to fight back. My sister says Dad choked Mom sometimes, but I don’t remember that. When Mom wasn’t home, Dad would abuse my sister and me.

I was in 8th grade, puberty was in full bloom and I was dealing with shit not only at home but at school. I was the victim of several incidents that were classified as teasing back then but would be considered racialized trauma today. Back then, that wasn’t even a concept, but that was the bulk of what happened to me. Name-calling, assault, threats - that was the near daily life of a mixed kid living in a sea of white faces in a rural part of Pennsylvania. My “training” as an abused kid taught me how to be invisible to the bullies. Sometimes those strategies worked; sometimes they didn’t. My only escape was reading and writing. Getting lost in a world of my own creation helped me drown out the misery of being in places where the other I represented was not wanted nor welcomed.

That year, I began a diary in earnest. Not just a daily log of what happened, but a full-blown vomiting of thoughts and feelings. I still have that diary. Using a red pen somehow made me feel stronger, like I was wielding a mighty machete to slay the racists and parents who made those crucial years hell. I kept the diary well-hidden because nothing was ever private in my home. We didn’t have door locks.

Also that year, I made my first attempt at writing a novel. It was shit and full of racy scenes, which I know now was an attempt to process my sexual abuse. But, morals aside, the writing helped me dissociate, which I needed to do to escape and survive.

Truth be told, writing kept me from killing myself.  I constantly had thoughts of dying and running away. I occasionally thought about how I’d do it – using a kitchen knife completing seppuku like my samurai ancestors or gulping down Mom’s sleeping pills. When I wasn’t thinking about killing myself, I thought about running away. My dreams reflected this turmoil. Tornadoes, darkness, running from monsters with no faces.

Writing was the only way I could stay sane. I was the kid I have seen in my counseling practice – the kid who claims everything is fine while the walls are on fire. My parents didn’t believe in counseling, especially my mother, so my only resource was myself and that innate resilience I was born with. How ironic that I’m a counselor today.

It was also during this precious age of 13 that I was introduced to the gift of author Maya Angelou. At that time, I had no idea about her identity and fame. All I knew was I was drawn to a book with a very interesting title I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and it was sitting on a bookshelf my parents picked up somewhere. I didn’t have access to many books back then, so finding this treasure was a godsend. I know now this book and how I found it were signs from the Universe. 

I read this book pretty much in one sitting because I couldn’t put it down. It was a flashlight under the covers type of book that had to be read until dawn. Her story was my story. Her hell was my hell. I remember feeling envious that her abuser was killed while mine lived a few feet from me. I also remember feeling less alone - that what happened to me has happened to others, and I wasn’t a freak. Prior to that point, I had felt gross and ashamed about what my father was doing to me. Who would want to be friends with someone like me with that kind of background? Who would love me? I was damaged goods. It was bad enough that I didn’t fit in because of my racial heritage and poverty. Now I had to deal with additional alienation because of abuse. There was no #metoo movement back then.

Reading Ms. Angelou’s book was the first of many chops I’d make to the shame tree I had been living under. It saved my life and I stopped having suicidal thoughts for a long time. Her book opened my mind to the possibility that writing could be my way out. The word could set me free.

Write & Rise, my friends. Write & Rise.