Giving Meaning To The CHAOS....

Not only do I write a blog and post on it daily but I am a loyal follower of a several really good blogs, covering things from sports to cooking to life experience/memoir...the genre that Shell Shock also falls into.

 Honestly the "Real Life" blogs are my favorite because they are just that: REAL. I will also read non-fiction over fiction every time! I lived life in a fantasy land for 30 odd years, I want REALITY even with the hard details...it's healthier and helpful, I get to find out how others do this "living life" thing.

Christine Macdonald writes one of my favorite blogs and it was her POST today that inspired this one of mine tonight. The essence of it for me was about why people who have lived difficult lives (Christine lived a rock star type fantasy life as a former Stripper and Drug Addict in Hawaii beginning at age 19) can write about it. I can totally relate. As a recovering addict and rape survivor, I am frequently asked how I can even talk about such horror as being sexually assaulted. Or share the intimate details of my addiction and subsequent suicide attempt, that all led eventually to my recovery and ultimately HERE, to writing about it.

The direct quote that inspired me tonight  was:"I am giving purpose to my past, through the words I long to say, about a time I can't forget." I simply had never been able to articulate my rational for writing about myself quite that accurately. My natural response to the question was always that I was "saving my own ass" by writing about it.

And that too is an honest to goodness reason why I do write about it. If I didn't get those poisonous, horrific memories out of my head & into the light, they would certainly eat me up inside...as a matter of fact it had already started to happen and as a result I'd tried to take my own life just before I finally sobered up for good. 

But by sharing that experience with others, I was also taking all those incredibly painful & negative memories and using them to accomplish something positive by helping someone....and that gives the horror some purpose. Ultimately, it meant that this stuff must have happened for a reason...a "Higher Purpose".

So that comment and really the whole post hit me like a lightening bolt between the eyes...it gave some sense to the senseless and added a dash of purpose where I had never known it existed before. It certainly didn't make the experiences "worth it" but knowing there was a higher purpose beyond those difficult life experiences certainly gave me hope that the future could indeed be better...Because I could help someone by sharing the knowledge and wisdom gained by surviving the whole ordeal. My survival also provides real live hope that people can and do live through such things and it can get better.

The true reality of writing Shell Shock Serenade for me is I can't "NOT WRITE about it"...Because something deep inside myself compels me to do it...it's almost an obsession...a daily obsession to LIVE! I really believe that if I didn't write about my addiction and surviving sexual assault, that my recovery would be impeded if not prevented by the overwhelming Emotional, Psychological and Spiritual damage done by living through those experiences.

And for me that is an accepted fact of my life today and yes, a major motivation for my continuing to write. I now believe it is a critically essential part of my recovery program just like complete abstinence form booze/drugs and helping others.  So far time has proven the theory out...over and over again!