After reading Dori Laub THREE An Event Without a Witness: Truth, Testimony and Survival. I found it very interesting and it answered quite a few of my personal questions I've always had. For this post I've focused on the section, "The Impossibility of Telling". In this section of the reading Dori discussed the importance it is to be able to share your story. Which I find to be so true. Because in this life we've all been through some type of downfall in our lives. For some of us our downfalls soon become a break through and later become a testimony. Our testimonies could help someone else out who's either going through a simular situation or been through it already. Im definitely a living witness on how someone testimony or sharing of their story helped me. Just hearing that Im not the only one going through a situation made me feel so good inside as if everything will be okay; and from there my troubles got easier and it soon became my break through and testimony. Dori also states how bad a situation can get just just for not sharing your story.
"..survivors who do not tall their stories become victims of a distorted memory, that is, of a forcibly imposed "external evil," which causes an endless struggle with and over a delusion."
And I find this very true. With my story of accepting the fact that I was a gay male became a very hard struggle for me. With all the different opinions and judgments that went on during that point in my life was just UNREAL. It later lead me to suicide attempts and other dangerious activities. Little did I know, just opening my mouth and sharing my story would make the situation better. After accepting who I was and started to share my story to hose around me I noticed a big difference how I felt about the whole situation. It made me feel great and I no longer had this evil memory and struggle to hold me down.
I can't figure out how to just post, so I'll put this as a comment, though I don't believe i am commenting on what Artavius said.
ReplyDeleteIn Dori Laub's, BEARING WITNESS OR THE VICISSITUDES OF LISTENING', there were some good points made, although her conclusion is rather abrupt and trite, but there was one paragraph in particular which struck a chord with me. It was the paragraph on the second page of the reading beginning, "The listener to trauma, therefore, needs to know 'the lay of the land'...". There were multiple points made by the author which seemed much more insightful than her conclusion. The first was that the listener must be aware that the victim of trauma is frightened of knowledge, rather, understanding their suffering. This immediately plays into the paradoxical nature of victim psychology-- that, though all the victim may want is the answer to why 'they' were made to suffer, they also fear this knowledge because it could implicate them; that they may learn of some fault or deficiency which was impetus to their suffering. It is for this reason that the listener is the LI-STEN-ER, one who listens- not one who talks. It is not the place of the listener to comment at every pause with potential answers, but to be the cognizant journal to which the victim is inscribing their words. I also appreciate her notion that silence is all the victim is needing. That in the silence, though it is listened to, there is nearly no one else. It is the vocalization of that which has gone unsaid for so long that is therapeutic to the victim. That in the silence the victim may release the pressure of the mind, like drawing blood from around a severely concussed brain, so as to return to stasis. It is this idea of 'normalcy', baseline functionality, which many strive for though there is no such thing. The only thing normal about humans is that they are abnormal; beings out of touch with the nature that bore them.
Go to the blogger(.)com/home. Beside "Trauma In Lit and Film at MCA" there will be a bright orange pencil. Click on it to write the post. Hope this helped.
ReplyDelete