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Summer Randolph

Dr. Megan Marshall

ENG 402

3 October 2019

Understanding My Change

I knew that I could help a lot of people if I had the guts to share my work. People who

wouldn’t know that they needed to hear my work until they took the time to read it. I never could

have seen this type of work coming out of me because growing up I was never an impressive

writer. I had always written based off the topics provided to me. I wrote about the ideas of others

in the perspective of myself. While I was never an impressive writer, I was always a painter, and

a lover of drawing what was right in front of you. I used painting as an outlet for my emotions, or

even when I felt as though my words and physical body had become weak. Painting was my

outlet to demonstrate what I could not form into words. I had become skilled enough in painting

that I felt as though I didn’t need to write. Why would I write when I already expressed what I

felt? I had no idea that sometimes, your emotions and weaknesses could be lost within a painting,

and that having your emotions written down would solidify them within your work.

It wasn’t until I was a sophomore in college before I developed the ability to be an

emotional writer. To capture the words in my paintings so that others could examine them. The

very first emotional writing I created was by pure accident. I had no clue what was happening

when I created the initial work, but I knew it was important or else I wouldn’t have persisted. I

knew of its importance, but I had no idea who it would be important to. Was this emotional piece

going to be an outlet for my uncontrolled thoughts? Was it going to be someone’s window into a

different perspective? Maybe it was for no one at all, only a work never to be read the same way
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again. Had I just created a piece that would spend its life on a sheet of paper, never to be felt

again? All thoughts that I wasn’t sure of until I let it continue to flow write into the hands of my

creative writing class.

The assignment was to write a creative non-fiction piece with the generic minimum and

maximum word counts. There were no other directions. No guidelines to structure my story

around. I was alone on this writing, and I had never been emptier of thoughts then I was in those

moment. We had weeks to accomplish this piece, and every day I would sit in attempt to master

the paper that provided no direction. Days passed by and then weeks. Why were words such a

source of difficulty in my life? Paintings flew from my fingers without any conscious thoughts to

work along with them. They were created within moments after I initially sat down, but it wasn’t

the same with writing. I sat there day after day with nothing to show for it. Suddenly, it was the

day before it was due, and I had nothing to show for it. To make matters worse, I was having a

day only nightmares could dream of. One of those frightful days that turn into torturous nights.

Sleepless nights. I had woken up the same way I did every morning, but when I arrived at work,

a monster had escaped from its confines within my mind. The nightmare from my past had

showed up at my work causing me to sink into the whole that was my own head. Memories that I

had repressed for years were back and they were attacking any mental protection I had created.

My ghoul had made his appearance to taunt me. To show me that the power still lied within his

hands.

My abuser was one of mental and physical strength in a time that I was vulnerable. He

came into my life in high school and ruined my existence in those four years because he knew I

was the only person who refused to forfeit myself to his will. I was not only left with bruised

wrists and a bruised face, but a scared, anxious ridden mind that could no longer protect me from
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the look upon his face. I thought that once I had graduated high school, I would no longer live in

fear. That I could breath without worrying whether things were going to start back up again or

not. I hoped that after high school, my phone could ring, and I wouldn’t have an anxiety attack

wondering if he was back to torment me when I was outside of the school walls as well. On this

day, inside my job, I came to the realization that I had graduated two years ago, and the fear had

laid dormant. Waiting for the moment that he reestablished himself. My fear laid dormant ready

to leach itself upon me, suffocating me as it grew stronger with his presence.

I arrived home in a haze that kept my mind from recognizing anything outside of my

caged mentality. I spent countless hours trying to clear away the fog, so that I could open my

mind back up. I knew that I had no way to access my normal route to mental freedom, which

meant that unless I found another solution, sleep would be a stranger to us. To make matters

worse, I had a creative writing paper due the next morning and noting to show for it. I tried to

block the mental disaster from my head as I begin thinking of ideas for this piece, but my mind

was fighting with itself. What was I to do? I knew that I couldn’t afford to receive a low grade on

my work, but I also knew that I couldn’t repress my thoughts any longer. As the hours passed, I

gave in to allowing myself to write blindly in hopes that the creation would work in some way

for class. I wrote in a way that was nauseating to the body, but healthy for the mind. I had never

been able to tell any one what had been hidden behind those terrors for so long. I wrote until I

reached my breaking point and crashed with mental exhaustion. I woke up early the next

morning realizing that all I had produced for my class was a work that I wasn’t sure anyone was

ready for. A work that I hadn’t looked over. I had no time to produce anything else, so I printed

it out and hoped the judgement would be minimal.

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The class began. My heart was in an anxious fight with the calm that was my disposition.

We were grouped up and told to distribute our work. I handed mine out with a shake that was so

violent that earthquakes would’ve been considered less superior. They read as I sat in silence.

My mind was screaming the judgements I thought were being expressed in their minds. It wasn’t

until that initial look from my peer, to illustrate that acceptance, that my mind knew it could

become relaxed once again. She discussed how relatable my piece was as she teared up. She

promoted my emotional vulnerability and asked for my rough draft to contain more information

that way it would feel more relatable. I didn’t understand what had happened. Why did she like

the words that I vomited out during an emotional breakdown? Why is this the first time I felt that

my paper was natural and not forced?

This moment was the most profound literacy event in my life because it allowed me to

cross the boundaries that were built in my own mind. This moment was my literacy event, but it

wasn’t what caused me to go through this comprehension of my journey. The fact that I was put

through a traumatic event in my life, that was bottled up, was a large factor in identifying myself

through writing. However, my primary influence through my journey was that peer. She didn’t

have to contribute verbally how she felt about my work. It was never stated that our peers had to

verbalize anything, but she did. She didn’t have to promote any of my writing skills, but she did.

She pushed me to write more. To open myself up to a world that is unforgiving in hopes that

someone would see my vulnerability and accept it. This peer was the cause for my literacy event

because she accepted without being asked. She related and proved that my demons could be the

demons of others. She provided direction to continue a path of completion for my piece. Without

having this peer, my journey would never have been a literacy event, or been understood the way

I needed to understand it.