TELLING YOUR STORY

Last time I wrote about the EMERGENCY stage when a survivor decides either to go on feeling shitty or start healing. The second stage is TELLING YOUR STORY. When you first begin telling what happened to you, it's important not to gabble it all out in one fell swoop. You'll find it doesn't help.
    Go slowly. You don't heal any faster by racing through the different stages and actually, the stages sort of intertwine like a spiral. They don't move in a nice easy pattern from one to the next. Why is nothing in life ever easy?
    You get to the final stage and find yourself going back to an earlier one. By that time, it won't be like starting all over again. You'll have a few tools to help you cope by then.  I hope.     
    There are lots of different ways to tell the story of what happened to us. Just as there are different kinds of trauma, each with their own story. You can:
               
                Sing your story 
                Write your story
                Paint your story
                Dance your story
                Play your story in music
                Sculpt, embroider, sew your story
                Garden your story
      
    One guy I know carved his story into a tree trunk.  He'd been advised to write his story but after 40 pages it still didn't help. The Story Pole has given pleasure to many members of this man's community. With his permission I'll download a picture of it another time.
    If you've found an unusual way to tell your story, please write in the Comments section. I'd love to hear how you've moved through this stage of recovery.
    
    REMINDER: Telling your story is powerful. Do it slowly bit by bit. 
    If you tell your story aloud, make sure it's to a trustworthy friend or counsellor.