Writing Saved My Life

from the desk of Loren Kleinman

Something told me to get off the kitchen floor and to start writing. I don’t know if it was God or if it was the little voice inside of me saying, “You can do this just one more day.” Perhaps it was the entire sadness turning into survival or it was just survival.  I put the kitchen knife back into the drawer. I closed the drawer. I went to my computer and wrote. As I wrote I was able to breathe; I was able to reflect on what just happened. The world began to come to a manageable pause. I felt OK.

According to recent Centers for Disease Control (CDC) statistics, depression affects one in 10 U.S. adults. Depression is noticed more commonly for women rather than the men. Around 20.2% of women are diagnosed with depression, in compared to 8.2% of men. This is also true for anxiety as 14.3% of women are affected with this disease, in compared to 8.2% of men.

There are many types of depression: clinical, bipolar, seasonal, etc.  There are many types of treatments: medication (I am on Lexapro daily), therapy (I go once a week), and in severe cases treatment facilities.  In combination with medication and therapy, I write as a way to explore my depression, to reflect and learn.  Writing has saved my life.

 My depression started shortly after I was sexually assaulted. On May 28, 2004, I was forced into an empty bathroom and raped by a doorman at a nightclub. I remember him following me around the dance floor. I couldn’t get away. My friend had left me to go to another club, and I was alone. The days following the assault are something I can’t even begin to imagine how I survived. Like most victims of trauma I was living my life under silence, with the hope that someone would eventually hear me. For me, silence equated to a type of guilt: somehow I must have done something wrong to deserve this. Who would believe me if I spoke? Who would help me? This experience altered the way in which I lived my life, and for seven months I suffered from severe anxiety attacks, nightmares that replayed the rape, paranoia, i.e. the fear that it would happen again, health-related problems, flashbacks, and depression. I remember one repeated nightmare:

I am waking up alone in the bathroom stall of the nightclub, and all I can see underneath the space between the stall door and the floor are his bare feet. He doesn’t move, just waits for me to come out. My mother is at home, I call to her.  My father is at home, and I call to him. My sister is at home, and I call to her. No-one can hear. I sit on the toilet seat and wait for him to go away, but I just wait. I don’t say anything. All I can see and hear, through a crack in the door, is my doctor’s face. He is yelling at me and holding a vaginal clamp.

        A large amount of raped women I came into contact with during my recovery mentioned a similar type of loneliness, a similar type of silence. I remember trying to explain what had happened to me to my mother and her reply was: you just have to move on. Get over it. I didn’t want to hear that, I wanted her to just listen, and not judge the progress or lack of progress I was making. I wanted her to hold my hand and tell me everything would be all right. I realized as the months went on that my only salvation was my art; my art was the one place I could go to; that if no one listened, the page would–it had no choice. 

          My recovery became a full-time job. Every day I thought: Why? Why does this world turn in on itself? I was really saying: why did this happen to me? I knew inside that it wasn’t my fault; however, I still felt an overwhelming guilt. My coping mechanism became my writing. I have always had a passion for writing, but this was different. I felt compelled to tell my story, to continue to speak. Like Roland Barthes’ discourse on love, this was my discourse too. The love I had for myself pushed me to understand my trauma, and forced me to break the silence. Even if no one cares to listen, you are remaking your place in the world; you are retaliating against the boundary your suffering has imposed on you. 

         

Bio:

Loren Kleinman has ten years of writing and editorial experience. She holds a B.A. in English Literature from Drew University and an M.A. in Creative and Critical Writing from the University of Sussex (UK). Her poetry has appeared in literary journals such as Nimrod, Journal of New Jersey Poets, Resurgence (UK), HerCircleEzine and Aesthetica Annual. She is the recipient of the Spire Press Poetry Prize and is a 2000 and 2003 Pushcart Prize Nominee. Kleinman was also a Nimrod/Hardman Pablo Neruda Poetry Prize Finalist for 2004. She is a contributing writer for IndieReader.com and owner of LK Editorial. Follow her on Twitter at @LK_Editorial or read her blog at http://www.lkeditorial.com/wordpress/