The Retraumatization of Book Writing
on the return of memory
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The other day I was doing one of my little “mental health” walks. The cold felt perfect and then I started thinking about the three bitches who bullied and ostracized me in high school. I started to cry.
So much of who I am in this very moment is due to the experience of being bullied by people who I thought were my friends. Similar to having been sexually assaulted, the bullying created a new me. I was a different person before and after. I am both grateful and frustrated by this.
The bullying was not my first trauma, but it was the one that hit the hardest in the first two decades of my life.
I had a fair amount of medical trauma early on in life (excessive UTIs and ear infections) and so naturally I developed health anxiety. This was exacerbated by the trauma of being bullied. At sixteen, I didn’t know what was going on, but now I can see that my body reacted to the trauma—as it tends to do. I couldn’t eat or sleep. My stomach hurt if I ate anything. The trauma that I was trying to digest could not be digested. My issues with food began and have stayed with me ever since (even through decades of various types of therapy).
Anytime I walked into my high school after the bullying, I felt lightheaded and faint. There is a tendency for people to think anxious or traumatized folks “make up” our physical symptoms. This is categorically untrue. It wasn’t made up—I felt it. If you’ve ever looked up the many physical symptoms that anxiety and PTSD can produce, then you know what I’m talking about. I continued to go to school until I could no longer function physically. I had to get on Zoloft to stop, not only the thoughts, but the sensations.
Looking back now, I wish I had other options, because as an adult I have felt sensation stunted. But I needed anything to function; to survive.
On my walk the other day, I cried for the girl I used to be. I know we were all kids—I try to think that those girls were just girls, too. However, I can proudly say that I have never bullied anyone (in person or online). I was not always kind (I’m still not), but I have never told someone they couldn’t sit at my lunch table anymore. I have never written four hate emails to a single person (or anyone). I have never, to my knowledge, caused someone irrevocable damage.
I wrote about this incident (and these girls) in my upcoming book and I wonder if they’ll read it. I wonder if they’ll even see it. I wonder if they think about what they did to me—if they feel remorse. They did eventually apologize, but it was hollow and I knew I could never trust them again.
I wonder if they know that they are part of the reason I am who I am today.
Neuronormativity, neuromes, campuses and finding a safe space -
Archivist Actions, Abolitionist Futures: Reimagining Archival Practice Against Incarceration - CLIR
Here's a PDF Version of the CIA Guide to Sabotaging Fascism - Jason Koebler
"God Demands Justice": The GOP's Chilling Plan to Attack Clinics -
The Black librarian who rewrote the rules of power, gender and passing as white - Deborah W. Parker
AI-Generated Slop Is Already In Your Public Library - Emanuel Maiberg
On a Doechii kick because I love her so much: