Pennebaker's Expressive Writing: The Story Behind Displaced
[Note: a narrative exploration is available at Live Write Publish. You’ll also find the Displaced reading guide there.]
When I left New Orleans in 2006, I knew I needed to work through everything that happened. I needed to wrap my head around my grief and regain some kind of mental stability. The drinking I wrote about in the book was still a problem for several more years, but I found three things helpful on the mental health front:
In 2007, I worked with a group of displaced New Orleanians in Houston documenting the stories of people who relocated there after the flood. I assumed I would only be telling their stories, but I realized I needed to start writing my own story, too. We were working under James Pennebaker's "expressive writing" framework. We took a workshop in his methods, and I started to write essays on the flood's aftermath and my disillusionment during rebuilding. At that time, they were only for me. It wasn't long before I had tens of thousands of raw words.
I enrolled in a master's program in 2007 and earned a master of science in library and information science. My focus was digital asset management (digital archives), and there was something mentally healing about working with databases and cataloging. In a very real way, organizing information helped me build a frame to hold the emotions I wasn't yet ready to feel.
Once I had the first essays written, I felt able to turn the experience into something potentially useful. It was never my intention to tell my own story, but as I got deeper into writing I realized there was something I could add to the conversation about what happened in the city that year.
It's funny to me now, so many years later, that this book exists in the world. It lived with me for so many years. To see it in the world and talk with people who read it is a full-circle feeling. I’m still adjusting to knowing other people now know the story. Hello, welcome. :)
Somewhere in the book I think I mentioned this: stories are profoundly healing. It’s a cliche. I know. But I strongly believe everyone carries at least one story they want to share, and that story deserves to be told. Stories bring us closer together.
Obviously I'm a big believer in using story as a way to process grief. It’s also a way to remain human in our increasingly digital world.
As the world becomes more digital-first, and AI is more involved with our content creation (see my upcoming book on freelance writing in the age of AI), it becomes even more important to share our human stories. /soapbox