"you’re wrong about that"

and other things to never say to a survivor

Content note: This writing makes passive reference to sexual abuse. 

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The first month of the year was a bit sticky, writing-wise. I was willing to do almost anything to avoid writing. For the first half of the month I would retreat to smoking hand-rolleds or taking epsom salt baths and playing Candy Crush until the water got cold. I could only write two sentences before the impulse to check my email took over. 

Surely someone needs something from me. Anything but this. 

I dug up exercises from one of my two writing coaches. I would select a prompt and set a timer for five minutes only to end up playing more Candy Crush at my desk, not even able to remember picking up my phone. It was like my body decided for me without notifying my brain: NOT DOING THIS.

One of the hardest parts of being a memoirist is getting unsolicited feedback from the characters in my stories. I do not enjoy this. I secretly wish those characters would find something else to read. It’s not for them, it’s for me.

Unexpectedly, writing my stories stopped feeling safe. I began doubting my ability to protect the characters in my stories and be a safe person for the people I love. I saw some cracks in my process, some places where I could’ve had conversations with certain people before hitting publish. 

When I asked my writing coach Sophia Apostol, she adamently defended my right to write my own story.¹ That story is mine, no one gets to tell me how to tell it, which parts are inaccurate, or that I’m sensationalizing the story for marketing purposes. (Ouch! That really hurt.) 

Writing is how I figure out life, and I am doing it in real time. That means that I write things that feel true in the moment, and am constantly discovering new pieces of evidence that change the story. It’s true that I’ve made mistakes when it comes to protecting the characters in my story. I didn't know how or when to have conversations about boundaries in my writing, so I neglected to have them at all. It is not surprising that people gave me feedback without considering that I might have boundaries too.²

I have spent hours painfully combing through old emails and scrubbing names, images and any other identifying factors. But my family will always be my family. My ex-lovers will always be my ex-lovers. My local readers, of which I have only a few, may be able to connect the dots no matter what I do. You can call a farmer a doctor and rename her Evangeline, but she’s still going to be that woman I was crying about last fall when she stole my boyfriend, even if I redubbed him Bentley the air traffic controller.

All my mistakes aside, I draw the line at being told my story is wrong / inaccurate / false. That is not for others to say. And since many of the conversations I am having involve abuse, it’s especially important that I call attention to this. 

In her book Women Talking, Canadian author Miriam Toews tells a story about a group of Mennonite women who were repeatedly drugged and sexually abused by the men in their colony for many years. When they spoke up about it, they were told the abuse had happened at the hands of ghosts or demons, or worse, that it did not happen at all. At several different points in the story the women express that the worst thing that happened to them was not the abuse, it was the being told that it never happened.

To deny someone’s experience is to deny their humanity. 

It takes a lot of courage for survivors of abuse to talk openly about what happened to them, even if it’s just to one person. For my part, I would like my readers to know that I will explain when I’m ready, when I understand better myself what actually happened. Right away is almost never the time to offer a rebuttal or say that what happened is actually my fault and that I am the person who is bad / unsafe / acting like a victim (all of which I have been told).

Not asking me to explain, defend or prove myself is also great place to start, that’s another thing I know for sure. Honestly, the magic words I have longed to hear are simply, “I believe you.”

the magic words I have longed to hear are simply, “I believe you.”

The other day I told my bestie’s husband something embarrassing that was going on with my body. I was a bit nervous about what he would say because I felt childish, and like I shouldn’t have been in the situation I was in. When I got back into my car I made a note in my phone because his reply was so perfect and exactly what I needed:

“I still love you,” he said, which kind of made me want to cry. Then he added, “And I don’t think any more or less of you.”

There is a time for feedback and hard conversations. I’m still learning how to have those. Many of the characters in my story are also people who are coping with tremendous emotional loss. Sometimes words can feel like razor blades. Is it any wonder that their reactions are equally sharp?

I’m going to keep writing though because, as I’ve said, writing is how I figure out life. I’m not sure what to forecast about the coming months. I want to prioritize my book, which has an outline now, and is begging to be written. But I’m continually collecting funny anecdotes and stories I really want to tell you, so I don’t think it’ll be long before a story lands in your inbox once again. I can’t wait to tell you about the Moldovan guy I recently met on a dating app who turned out to be a career criminal. I’m sure he was at least ten years older than his dating app-age.

In the meantime, thank you for seeing me. Thank you for believing me. Thank you for letting me be a messy human trying to find her way in the world.

With deep gratitude to all my readers near and far (but mostly far 😂),

Tarzan 

1. In addition to being an incredible writing coach, Sophia also hosts a mind-bending podcast called Fat Joy exploring the many harms that she and her guests experience in a world that marginalizes plus-size bodies.

2. If you’d like to give critical feedback that could be hard to hear, my preference is to be asked, “May I offer some reflections on something you wrote?” or “I’m having some feelings about what you’re writing. Could we talk about it?” Giving me the option to consent to feedback lets me know that I will be treated with love and respect.