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Post by belmont34 on Aug 31, 2007 23:22:57 GMT -5
On writing about our experiences:
Writers block: I have stopped and started writing about my experiences so many times .... Perhaps writing about being a murder victim is difficult (for more then the obvious emotional reasons) because the rules in the world we now live in are different then before the murder. The only thing that keeps coming back to me is that: suddenly I have been swept into an existential world against my will. Suddenly my entire understanding of the universe and the way that it functions has shifted and it is hard to make sense of it. For example: Before my dad died i believed in karma. i believed that good always won against evil. I believed that if someone commits a murder they get caught. And that good people are saved from this type of experience. Now, my understanding of the world has turned upside down. I live in Victor Frankel's world...and i am not sure how to put that on paper in a linear plot line--as that does not seem to explain what i am trying to say.
So, my writing has become confused. Torn apart and reconstructed in a different way---some call it Postmodern...
Are other people having the same issues? Jodi
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Post by drewsmom595 on Sept 1, 2007 4:33:50 GMT -5
Jodi:
You've hit the nail on the head.
I always thought that murder could never touch my family -- that happened to "other people." And I just couldn't understand why God could allow such a bad thing to happen to my Dad -- who was an extremely good man.
It shook my spiritual beliefs and beliefs about the world to the core. I did a lot of reading on the afterlife and spirituality. I went to a lot of different churches seeking a new spiritual home. I was very angry at God for a long time. My best metaphor of the experience I went through in re-examining my beliefs is that of a phoenix, rising from the ashes of my old life. I am a very different person than I was before the murder. My spiritual beliefs are very different.
Yet, I feel stronger and more vulnerable at the same time. I believe going through something as traumatic as I have has made me more compassionate to people who need help-- like the Grinch whose heart grew three sizes.
I refuse to "brand" myself as a victim, but rather as a survivor. Thinking of myself as a victim makes me feel powerless. I don't like that feeling at all.
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Post by belmont34 on Sept 1, 2007 8:40:01 GMT -5
I HATE the word victim. I find it insulting. Makes me think back to grade school and bullies....And when i am caleld a victim I feel like the girl in the class with the buck teath, thick glasses, frizzy hair and the limp...whom the popular kids love to tease....in short: to me the word victim implies that I had a character flaw that made me a victim--not that someone had a character flaw that made them a murderer and someone in my family happend to come across them......
But to me the word the word survivor makes me think of someone who was there at the time and didn't die--but could of--or holocost survivors--who lived through the camp experiences...or someone who had cancer and is in remission.
But, every experince is different. My feelings on these words might stem from the fact that i was living abroad when my dad died--That I heard the news through the telephone...my mum was there--she is more a surivivor then me--she was there...she saw it all...i was across the ocean at the dog races---i was in bed when i got the call...my story is quite different....i was one removied from the situation...know what i mean? J
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Post by drewsmom595 on Sept 1, 2007 9:20:06 GMT -5
Yeah...I know what you mean. I wasn't "there" when my Dad was murdered either...my Mom was. But I found out about it about 15 minutes after it happened and rushed to my parent's house and saw my Mom with blood all over her clothes, the crime scene tape, the police swarming around and the intrusive media buzzing around like flies. It was terrible.
I was extremely traumatized (still am) by the shock of it all, and the grief that follows by something like this has happening in my family. That's why even though "technically" I'm not a survivor, I feel like I am. I've survived something so horrific that most people's mouths gape open when they hear about how my mentally ill brother killed my Dad.
Honestly, the night it happened, I didn't think I could survive such a tragedy. I was afraid I was going to have a heart attack or go insane. To this day, I think experiencing such deep shock and grief probably does affect my health...probably will cause me to have a shortened life span, although I don't have any proof of it.
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Post by Janet-Beth's Mom on Sept 1, 2007 11:45:53 GMT -5
I've had a lot of confusion at times - weeks (some months at the first) when it would be hard to work (not even creative writing, but only technical writing - it was still supposed to make sense). I still have those days sometimes.
I was not there at my daughter's murder either, but we stood by her bedside in ICU for most of 2 days watching her die, and it is truly horrific what bullets and knives can do to our bodies.
I used to have flashbacks of what it must have been like for her when it happened (even though I was not there for that). I can still close my eyes and 'feel' like I am standing in that hospital room, the vent blowing on the left side of my face, hearing the noises of the machines, smelling the hospital smells, seeing her there on that bed. At least it has not come upon me by surprise anymore for 2 or 3 years, but if I am thinking about it anyway and close my eyes then I am sometimes there again. I don't know if that will ever be gone.
Perhaps it takes time to get to where we can really write rationally about such irrational things, with so much traumatic emotion attached to them to upset us along the way?
I have a friend who is a grief counselor now. She wants me to write a book with her about our walk together through all this, with the goal that it might help other MVS hopefully somehow, maybe something that could help others could come out of our story and Beth's story. I was one of her subjects for her doctoral thesis.
And yet, I can't get started, because I am afraid to go back that deeply into the beginning. She saved some things that I wrote to her in the first year after the murder, and I can't even work up the courage to read them, and go back even deeper into that place. Perhaps I am not feeling safe enough from those symptoms yet. Maybe I will get there someday. I don't know.
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Post by belmont34 on Sept 1, 2007 23:43:59 GMT -5
Why would you want to go back there? Of course you can't get started....going there once is more than enough thank you!
Why is it when we have experienced something tramatic people (who study trauma) want to use our experiences to help others? For a while I found msyelf stuck in this weird helping cycle--that did nothing for my own state of mind...I just looped through the experince like a form of emotional terrets. It was so unhealthy for me--I did it for others and belive you me: it did nothing for the people whom I was trying to help....I think to write about this experience. One has to find a reason to write other then to help others...we personally have to get something out of it. I think that reason the reason to put this awful horror on paper has to be an intellectual reason....to try to say something important to the world...for example an idea I keep coming back to: What the heck are Americans doing fighting a war on terror when there is a war in their own back yard?
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Post by taterfay on Sept 4, 2007 0:26:54 GMT -5
I have written many poems about my sister's murder (poetry comes easier for me because...well, it always has for some reason) and it was to help myself, not others. With that said, a couple of months after my sister was murdered I started writing a book about her murder. I wanted it to be about her death but also about her life, but I found it becoming more about how I was dealing with the whole experience, the grief, the horror, the surrealism of all of it. I wrote about 15 pages and haven't written anything on it for months. I know I will go back to it eventually but now is not the time. Instead, I traveled for several months and it was a good sort of escapism and helped me do some healing. Now I want to write about my travel experiences instead (they are much more happy than writing about my sister's murder or my mom's death from cancer 10 months later) but I know those more tragic stories need to be told, eventually. I need to write them for my own catharsis, but I really do feel that if I could write and publish my sister's story that hopefully I might save just ONE person that is currently in an abusive relationship...that would mean the world to me. Ok, I'm rambling. Don't even get me started on the "invasion"!! Have you been able to write about other things completely unrelated to the murder of your dad? I find that my concentration (in general) has really suffered since I lost both my sister and then my mom. I think that is part of grief. Anyways, try to be patient with yourself! Stacey
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Post by belmont34 on Sept 11, 2007 18:44:41 GMT -5
I worry when i write that others in my famiy will not like what i say....writing is so public....
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Post by bk2007 on Sept 12, 2007 4:37:22 GMT -5
Dear belmont, I have to tell you that I read this thread when you first put it up and it has been such a thought provoking subject for me. I didn't reply at the time because I had so many things to think about. I literally thought about different aspects of the subject for at least 3 days and I even dreamed about it! I can't formulate exactly what's going on yet but I chuckled at myself thinking how I felt like Virginia Wolf writing about my own insanity.
I did write a bunch of stuff that first night, then after doing it I totally deleted it because I realized that wasn't where I am anymore. I didn't have a need to go back. I am finding that the present is more interesting because I am more intrigued by the person I am finding. I didn't like that person so much before because I was so angry and I felt so in limbo or even degenerating. And I had no idea how to do anything about that. I think reading and writing here on the board has opened new areas in me, shown me ways that I like better in my surviving process. I feel like I'm beginning to do more than survive. I feel like a better person because of the support and freedom to examine issues that come up from other peoples perspectives. I am not pressuring myself to "come up" with anything but things like this thread just give me thought that causes change in me.
I think it's wonderful that everyone is so open, I just haven't seen this anywhere else. I think it's much more important to write our genuine thoughts and feelings then afterwards worry about what we're going to do with it, as in regards to what you said about family reading it. If I worried about that I'd never write anything and it's too important for me not to write and purge my demons and dreams.
Barb ~
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Post by belmont34 on Oct 26, 2007 22:08:48 GMT -5
I keep trying to come up with something that expresses in writing this process of greif when a loved one has been murdered. But, alas the writing process begins and ends. There is no magic in the writing....
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Post by taterfay on Oct 28, 2007 18:33:18 GMT -5
I have never been one that could sit down with the intent to write something. I have always had things just flood into me (I don't know from where) and that is where my best writing has come from...almost like I've "channeled" it...Maybe you should just put this away for awhile...it WILL come to you and it will be good, but maybe this just isn't the right time. I don't know.
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Post by unk on Nov 1, 2007 0:42:24 GMT -5
I can't stand my own writing when it is about stuff swirling deeply within myself. It seems to work better when I write fiction to capture just a piece of the turmoil.
Plus, when I try to write about what's going on inside, my whole digestive track goes limp. Again, it's safer for me to spill my guts in fiction. I wish you well.
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Post by pumpkin12903 on Nov 1, 2007 8:09:06 GMT -5
There's a book by ALL MVS called "Waking to Tears". I don't know when the sequel will come out, but there's a website if anyone is interested in sending a piece in. I have a piece in the 1st book and HOPE my new piece will be in the 2nd book. This book is wonderful as it's by ALL MVS. Yes, reading about our tragedies is very upsetting, but I've also found much inspiration from the book, too, as at least some have chosen not to live in hate and bitterness! They're still sane and anyone who stays sane after becoming a MVS has my admiration. I thought I'd post about this book in case any of the newer people on here who write are interested in books by other MVS.
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Post by taterfay on Nov 1, 2007 19:19:12 GMT -5
thanks, pumpkin!
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Post by drewsmom595 on Nov 2, 2007 19:00:30 GMT -5
WOW! Thanks for sharing this pumpkin!! I'll check it out! You're the best!
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Post by Snowleopard on Nov 2, 2007 22:56:28 GMT -5
Writing in one form or another is probably good for the soul.
One of the things I have picked up in recent years, since around 2001 or so, has been keeping a diary. It is interesting to see that during stressful times, I would go thru a volume in about 3 months but during not so stressful times, over a year. I tend to write it in an abstract style lest it should fall into unfriendly hands ...... now, a joke, but at earlier times, had I kept one, I had enough opposers who would probably gladly would like their hands on it.
Secondly, there may be, in some future, alternate courses from such. I have several volumes of unpublished novels, written during an earlier time of stress. I took an acting class this semester and had to come up with monologs. Two of those are from characters I created decades ago and now I am playing them, being them. In those particular cases, it is something of a thrill.
But that is probably not the case here. But what writing might be is a form of healthy escapism. --------------------------------------------------- ("To work it out I let them in, All the good guys and the bad guys that I've been, All the devils that disturbed me and the angels that defeated them somehow, Come together in me now", (wtte), lyrics, "Beauty and the Beast", "The Phantom of the Paradise")
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Post by taterfay on Nov 3, 2007 21:48:50 GMT -5
I agree, snow.
I've kept a diary off and on since I was 11 years old and started writing poetry about that age as well. Luckily, I've always let other people read whatever they wanted...never had to worry about unfriendly hands (thank god)
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Post by belmont34 on Aug 2, 2012 23:36:08 GMT -5
I'm working on a full length play. It's about three woman, a mother and her two adult daughters preparing for the murder trial of their father. It's funny, sad and very very important. I hope one day it gets performed. Jodi
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Post by Janet-Beth's Mom on Aug 4, 2012 9:50:51 GMT -5
I'm working on a full length play. It's about three woman, a mother and her two adult daughters preparing for the murder trial of their father. It's funny, sad and very very important. I hope one day it gets performed. Jodi Thank you for trying to communicate what walking around in this is truly like. There are so many distortions out there. I hope it gets performed and recognized someday too.
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