Excavating Our Truth in Memoir
Many believe that expressive writing is an effective tool in resolving trauma. But the very nature of trauma can lead memories to be recorded incompletely or not at all. Early on in crafting my memoir I realized an inquest was needed. The purpose of an inquest is to find out when, where, how, and in what circumstances—with as much specificity as possible.
(Making the Most of Your Memory.)
What exactly had happened to me? In 1969 at age 14 I became pregnant, and my high-ranking naval officer father and socially ambitious mother made the decision to send me to a “home for unwed mothers” where they committed for me that I would give my baby up for adoption at birth. My son was born, and I was instructed to pretend that my pregnancy and his relinquishment never happened.
What I had experienced in that era of societal judgment was buried under tons of guilt and shame. Even if my parents hadn’t destroyed all the physical evidence and rearranged all the furniture before I came home, I still would have struggled to recall the details, let alone process their enormous emotional content. Yet the physical and emotional truth of what happened remained stored in my body.
Even if broken and fragmented and traumatic, I needed to piece the story together. As a writer, I hoped that if I found the route to the correct door, I could reveal what was inside, recovering memories I was told not to have. But before I was a writer, I was a mother. 22 years after my trauma my longing was undiminished. How could I keep this secret from myself? Before the internet, before DNA testing, and without even knowing his adoptive name, I set out to find my son—and in the process try to reclaim my erased self.
As part of my search, I found my way to a support group for adoptees and birthparents. There we were, seated in a circle within the fellowship hall of a local church. We took turns introducing ourselves. The first two speakers were adoptees in search of their birthmothers. The third was a woman who had relinquished a baby girl in 1968 after banishment to a maternity home. I gasped, and everyone looked at me. It was the first moment in 22 years that I wasn’t alone in my secret. What memories I did have existed in isolation until that point. My life-altering and life-long truth had suddenly been validated.
As Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D., says in his groundbreaking book, The Body Keeps the Score, “The critical issue is reciprocity: being truly heard and seen by the people around us, feeling that we are held in someone else’s mind and heart. For our physiology to calm down, heal, and grow we need a visceral feeling of safety.” I had no idea at the time that going to a support group was going to give me a tool to write our story.
Not only did my family, the maternity home, and my brain conspire to keep my memories from me, but the legalities of adoption in 1970 meant that records were sealed—ostensibly to protect the privacy of birthmothers, but more pointed toward underscoring shame. I needed the legal records I was prevented from seeing, but I was determined to continue my inquest without them.
In 1992 I traveled to Old Dominion University library to view the archived records from The Florence Crittenton Home for Unwed Mothers, which closed in 1973. And there I was—in a small handwritten booklet: “Susie,” FC #58, May 15, 1970, boy. Thomas.” Proof that I did indeed bear a son! On a few occasions during my search when I came across written documentation of what had happened, I had this flush of feeling that I hadn’t imagined my son, I hadn’t dreamed him up. The persistent repetition of that feeling let me know that even I needed reassurance that this experience was real. For so long, in almost every context, I had not received validation.
That critical acknowledgement along with slowly sharing with others, after decades of silence, helped me to go deeper into my own material as I was writing, allowing my frightened memories to be out in the open, like birds and creatures coming back after a forest fire. I learned to be patient and quiet and to sit still while they approached me, until I could see the knowing on their faces and on mine.
The writing process not only excavates the story to get it on the page, it also explores a deeper way of understanding our experience. The reader is looking for that same understanding. The reader wants to feel what you felt, to know how you survived, which gives them a connection to their own lives and feelings.
Check out Tracy Mayo’s Childless Mother here:
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As I continued my memory recovery, bits of my past floated back to me unasked. Even current events triggered recall. August 2017 brought a near-total eclipse of the sun to Boulder, Colorado. Without warning I was transported back to March 1970, Florence Crittenton in Norfolk, Virginia—for a total eclipse. At least two dozen pregnant girls filed outside to witness the event, as we were in the path of total loss of light (weren’t we though?). The frightened blackbirds flying about in confusion; the sickly green-yellow light; sun obliterated and yet not totally dark; surprisingly cold; profound quiet as I stood in the shadow of the moon. These precious details had lain dormant for 47 years, but they were with me all along.
For so long, I had been denied the most basic human need—to understand my own existence, to know my own story and what it meant. So, I uncovered real evidence and gathered validators around me. What is memoir but memories? We write not just to tell a story or to publish a book, but to find out something about ourselves. And unearthing our experiences in excruciating detail will spark a reader’s own self-reflection.
We all need to understand why we have our story and what we’re supposed to do with it now. Same for the reader: Why am I here? Uncovering and telling my story might help someone else find theirs.
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