Why I Write What I Write About

A friend read my play last night and sent me his thoughts today. The part that hit me the most was my friend's thoughts about the possible why and how behind the play...which, in turn, made me think about how and why I had written the play. I began to ask myself why I write what I write about. I have a few theories about why I write about certain things, but let's start with what I tend to write about:

I tend to write about trauma. In college, my honors thesis looked at the trauma black women experienced on the auction block during slavery and how that could be connected to the theater, the stage. As a theatergoer, I find I am always looking at the physicality of the actors. How does trauma manifest physically? As a social work student, I find myself drawn to classes that focus on trauma. In my work with children dealing with autism and/or mental/emotional/behavioral issues, trauma has come up again and again. I've learned about many facets of trauma, but still have a lot more to discover. As a social work student, I am interested in helping people deal with trauma and live fulfilling lives. As a writer, I am interested in discovering, describing how people deal with trauma. Interestingly, I am more interested in how trauma destroys the lives of my characters than discovering how my characters can be saved.

In everyday life, we tend to think of trauma as the big stuff. For instance, people forgive my fear of flying because they assume it is connected to the trauma I experienced on September 11th. I, on the other hand, think it has to do with one experience I had on a plane that honestly wasn't at all bad, but may have turned on my anxiety flow so that now I avoid planes like the plague. Most people wouldn't think of my small event on the plane as traumatic, but trauma is defined as a "deeply distressing or disturbing experience," which means it is all relative. One person's trauma is another person's everyday life and vice versa. Lots of things can be traumatic and can lead to pretty upsetting results. As a writer, I love playing out those results. As a social work student, I love helping someone through them. In my personal life, I have found it interesting to take a step back from events and see how some ended up being more "deeply distressing" than others. I like asking why that is the case, how that is the case. This basically means I am trying to psychoanalyze myself all the time. Ha. Now do you understand why I need to write?

Why do I tend to write about trauma? Maybe it is because I am interested in my own "traumas", my own experiences that maybe shouldn't have been traumatic, but ended up feeling that way or the experiences that maybe should have been traumatic but didn't end up registering that way. Maybe it is because I've always felt drawn to those who seem to be working through distressing and disturbing situations. Maybe it is because I enjoy learning how people become who they are and trauma tends to shape people in both horrifying and soul-strengthening ways. Maybe it is because I've watched far too many episodes of ER, Criminal Minds, and Law and Order: SVU. I am not sure.

I am sure this is a question I will continue to ask myself for years to come. All I know is that I can now look at my education, my writing, and my work and see this theme. I think it is interesting to notice and acknowledge themes like this. I think most of us have them and they aren't always obvious. What is our work, our education, our personal lives--what are all of these things working towards or working with? What are we trying to discover, uncover, recover, or, in some cases, seal off?