Tag: trauma

Trauma: Essays on Art and Mental Health—a few words about a new anthology and my own contribution

One of my most precious possessions is a still from the
classic 1919 film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, created for me
four decades ago by a besotted admirer, the oddly effete son
of a burly local sportscaster. It is a close up from the final
scene at the asylum, of Cesare, the mad doctor’s imagined
murderous somnambulist, peacefully examining a flower. It
is my favourite moment in the film, a counterpoint to my
own greatest childhood nightmare. Here, the monster is, in
reality, a gentle soul. I had always feared the opposite, that
someone would one day see the monster lurking inside me.
But what I couldn’t possibly know at the time I fell in love
with that image was that, like Cesare, I too would one day
be committed to a psychiatric unit.

This is the opening paragraph of my essay, “Unravelling the Self”, which is included in the newly released volume from Dodo Ink, Trauma: Essays on Art and Mental Health. Contributors include Neil Griffiths, Kirsty Logan, Sophie Mackintosh, Monique Roffey, Alex Pheby, Marina Benjamin, Juliet Jacques, Susanna Crossman, Tomoé Hill, Emma Jane Unsworth, Yvonne Conza, Rachel Genn, the film-maker David Lynch and many more. Mental health is a topic that is drawing a growing audience, but with this anthology editors Thom Cuell and Sam Mills, hope to reach a more literary readership who wish to reflect on the issue at a greater depth.

Trauma approaches its title subject from a wide range of perspectives: psychological or  physical, intimate or public, buried in childhood or immediate—triggered by the pandemic or politics or the messy business of living. There are deeply personal accounts of childbirth, relationships with fathers, with lovers, with sexual violence. Some essays engage with history, others with literature or current affairs or potential means of healing the pain. Moving through a PDF of the collection I am struck by the extraordinary variety of essays. I have only read a few, but I hardly know where to turn next. There is so much to chose from and until I have a hard copy in my hands I will wander the detached landscape of the typeset file and read at will.

In her thoughtful introduction, Jenn Ashworth places the collection in a timely context—after all, many of the essays, including my own, were written long before the arrival of 2020 and Covid-19. She brings my essay into the discussion as follows:

In ‘Unravelling the Self’ Joseph Schreiber provocatively returns
to previous diagnoses and the gender assigned to him at
birth in an attempt to construct a present free from the
constructions of others. ‘Do we ever know who we really
are? What does a diagnosis truly hold? How much does it
form your identity, become something to cling to define and
explain the strange and uneven way your life has unfolded?’

I have resisted writing about my experiences with mental illness at any length. There is, to this day, much unresolved trauma. My essay here traces the intersection between bipolar disorder and gender dysphoria. Both are an essential part of who I am, but I no more identify as “trans” than I identify as “bipolar.” To say identify implies choice. And choice triggers guilt. Guilt longs for absolution, absolution that may be beyond reach—as it proved to be for me. In this piece I write about madness, gender, grief and the trauma I am still trying to articulate.

If asked I would say that I have never regretted my decision
to transition; it was, for me, after decades of unnamed
gender insecurity, the only thing I could do. Once I realized
testosterone would allow me shed my skin, metaphorically
speaking, I could see no other path.

I had never thought about grief, or rather that grieving was
something I would be allowed to do. To assert a transgender
identity, to transition and leave one’s birth gender behind
is supposed to be an act of affirmation. It’s something for
others to grieve. But, if I am completely honest, there are
moments when I do wish I had never had to transition at all.

If you are interested in this multifaceted anthology, it should fairly easy to obtain in the UK, beyond that Book Depository might be a good option or Kindle if you prefer an ebook.

Literary prescription: The Sound of Things Falling

I am now a few weeks beyond the significant manic episode that has ground my life and work to a halt and precipitated a sudden crash into depression, anger and frustration. The crisis did not happen overnight and the healing will take time but I feel some measure of relief that my ability to lose myself in a book has been returning. Some additional anti-anxiety meds are helping too but I am trying to remain open to literary whims – reviews, suggestions from readers I respect, stray quotes that catch my attention. It seems to be critical medicine for me.

Fortunately there is also that wellspring of rewarding fictional riches, The International Impac Dublin Literary Award. Each year nominations are commissioned from public libraries around the world to create an extensive longlist from which a shortlist of 10 titles is ultimately drawn. It is inevitable that works in translation tend to feature prominently both  in the shortlist and among the archive of winners. Purists can argue over the Booker all they want, this is the award I watch.

winner_slide_2014This year’s winner, just announced in June, is The Sounds of Things Falling by Colombian author Juan Gabriel Vasquez, translated by Canadian Anne McLean. This book had been waiting on my ereader for some time, but in light of its recent honour, I thought it might be time for a closer look. A few pages in and I was hooked. Billed as a literary thriller I was expecting a perhaps an entertaining diversion from my own troubles but in truth I soon found myself  deep in a remarkably intimate account of the impact that traumatic experiences have on those directly effected and those around them in ways we often are powerless to predict or prevent. Whether the trauma results from actions chosen or events over which an individual has little or no control the fallout over days, month and years can lead to fateful decisions, ruptured relationships and deep wounds. At the core of this novel are two strangers, brought together through an act of violence who find temporary refuge in a sharing their own experiences of coming of age in Bogota at the height of the drug fueled wars of the 1970 and 80s.

Personally, as I struggle to make sense of the pressures, stresses and events that collaborated to make such a mess of my recent months, it is difficult not to vacillate between anger and regret. Although I know that mood disorders play havoc from the inside out and that the person who is suffering knows something is wrong, they may be slow or even unable to define the nature of the condition, and most certainly incapable of stopping it on a dime. Playing the “if only” card serves no significant benefit. As Vasquez’s narrator Antonio muses as he sets to record the experiences he wishes to share:

“There is no more disastrous mania, no more dangerous whim than the speculation over roads not taken.”

I was able to lose myself in this novel but it did not serve as quite the distraction I expected from a “literary thriller”. There was a disturbing real world resonance that I could not have anticipated. The Sounds of Things Falling is more than simply a title, it is an experience repeated and echoed throughout the novel. From a airshow stunt gone terribly wrong, to a fatal drive by shooting, to the devastating crash of a jetliner. Because a key character was a pilot, de Saint-Exupéry‘s The Little Prince also features as a beloved childhood tale. It was disturbing to imagine the little prince asking the pilot if he also fell out of the sky when bodies were literally falling out of the sky as Malaysia Airlines MH17 exploded over a disputed region of the Ukraine.

Trauma, small and personal or wide-reaching and global and all shades in between have always marked human existence. It divides and unites us in large and small ways. the complexity of that experience is, for me, one of the primary themes explored in this worthy literary award winner.