Nine years ago, a man tried to murder me and very nearly succeeded. I was in ITU for days and critical care for more and convalescence (physical) took a couple of years, during which time I was diagnosed with PTSD. A trauma has happened, then we process it (or not) and then we arrive at a place. Except in this case, that isn't true. He tried to murder me because he was my ex-wife's new husband, a career criminal and because she convinced him to do it. He got 27 years for attempted murder, she got nothing. She abused and brainwashed our children for eight years before the murder incident and had been abusing me for the entire twenty-five years I have known her. She plumped for trying to murder me because I had won custody of our children and she had lost. It was her last roll of the dice (although she's made a few more since and continues to emotionally abuse the children only they are so blinded they can't see it.)
Anyway, along the way, I realised that I (because of my childhood) kind of allowed myself to be in that situation, and didn't place myself as having value in society that would make me proud/stubborn enough to walk away from abuse knowing I deserved better. And in that twenty-five years, I have had to battle staggering incompetence/negligence and apathy from police, social services, courts, councils, governments and the institutional gender bias of the world at large that seems to think that blokes who are abused must deserve it or at least that blokes are fine at just working these things out for themselves are require no TLC/Support. I've also realised the world is a very broken place and the current methodology of defining success by wealth, fame and popularity are absurd and fetid and won't ever come to any good.
So here is my writer's block. I've been told I have a fascinating story that needs telling. I think that too. I'm just not sure what the hell it is. I could write one of those "self-journey" books (A Child called IT/The Boy David series - that sort of thing) but they tend to be written by someone who has achieved deliverance to a better, happier or more peaceful place; and I very clearly haven't. I could write a manifesto for what's wrong with the world and suggest a New World Order, but that kind of sounds arrogant and anyway, I'm not sure the world wants to listen to that sort of book right now. Or I could write a book about mentally coping with decades of abuse and how gardening and watching the wildlife sometimes makes it fairly bearable, and how that doesn't really equate to depression because it's actually just a motor reaction to years of hell and pills won't fix it. But I have no recognised qualification in mental health and so would be immediately denounced by that profession as a dangerous charlatan.
Has anyone got any bright ideas for how (in this sort of situation) you make head nor tail of what it is you're supposed to be writing please? Someone once said, "just write, write anything and it will start to become clear as you go," so I did. Except it didn't. I've just ended up with 60,000 words which is a mish-mash of all the above and with no apparent way to end the bloody thing!
I know I need to do this. I'm just completely stymied as to how I figure it out.
Anyway, along the way, I realised that I (because of my childhood) kind of allowed myself to be in that situation, and didn't place myself as having value in society that would make me proud/stubborn enough to walk away from abuse knowing I deserved better. And in that twenty-five years, I have had to battle staggering incompetence/negligence and apathy from police, social services, courts, councils, governments and the institutional gender bias of the world at large that seems to think that blokes who are abused must deserve it or at least that blokes are fine at just working these things out for themselves are require no TLC/Support. I've also realised the world is a very broken place and the current methodology of defining success by wealth, fame and popularity are absurd and fetid and won't ever come to any good.
So here is my writer's block. I've been told I have a fascinating story that needs telling. I think that too. I'm just not sure what the hell it is. I could write one of those "self-journey" books (A Child called IT/The Boy David series - that sort of thing) but they tend to be written by someone who has achieved deliverance to a better, happier or more peaceful place; and I very clearly haven't. I could write a manifesto for what's wrong with the world and suggest a New World Order, but that kind of sounds arrogant and anyway, I'm not sure the world wants to listen to that sort of book right now. Or I could write a book about mentally coping with decades of abuse and how gardening and watching the wildlife sometimes makes it fairly bearable, and how that doesn't really equate to depression because it's actually just a motor reaction to years of hell and pills won't fix it. But I have no recognised qualification in mental health and so would be immediately denounced by that profession as a dangerous charlatan.
Has anyone got any bright ideas for how (in this sort of situation) you make head nor tail of what it is you're supposed to be writing please? Someone once said, "just write, write anything and it will start to become clear as you go," so I did. Except it didn't. I've just ended up with 60,000 words which is a mish-mash of all the above and with no apparent way to end the bloody thing!
I know I need to do this. I'm just completely stymied as to how I figure it out.
You should write it.