Writers' Lab: Healing through writing

Today, I have the honor to invite Bridgette Dembowski in the writers' lab to share her story on how writing can work as a healing tool, amongst others, for veterans. Bridgette G. Dembowski is the Director of Communications for Bare the Burden Project, a national non-profit agency that serves US military members and veterans recovering from trauma exposure and other invisible psychological wounds of war. Bare the Burden focuses on providing its online community with writing exercises, an anonymous forum for discussion of difficult topics, opportunities to engage in self-reflection, positive peer-to-peer-interaction, and personal growth and healing through the writing process. Mrs. Dembowski is also a contributing author to the edited book project, Diagnosing Folklore: Perspectives on Mental Health, Trauma, and Disability, edited by Trevor J. Blank and Andrea Kitta, scheduled for publication in 2015. Mrs. Dembowski holds a Master's Degree in Human Development and Family Sciences from Oklahoma State University and is currently studying Psychology at Kansas State University. She is married to Captain Matthew J. Dembowski, the Apache Troop Commander of the 4th Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, under the 1st Armor Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, U.S. Army. They have one child, Benjamin, who is a 2-year-old budding visual artist and wordsmith, and live in Manhattan, Kansas.

Ernest Hemingway once stated that writing one true declarative statement was all one needed to begin the writing process. Write one thing that is true. Start there. For many, writing is not only a form of communication or story telling, but a tool for self-discovery and healing. Writing in the form of correspondence as well as journaling has been shown to be beneficial for those suffering from loss, grief, traumatic exposure, and other invisible wounds.
The one true statement that Hemingway calls for may be a starting point for some; but in other cases, the one true statement is an achievement and a victory all its own.

As a mental health advocate and a senior member of a non-profit organization that serves military members and veterans, I see writing as an opportunity for healing and growth after victimization, experience, and/or exposure to trauma. Our organization, Bare the Burden, hosts a website that contains an online application. This application provides its users with an interactive and supportive group of peers, bound by their shared experiences of military life and exposure to traumatic situations (including: combat involvement, dangerous environmental exposure, witnessing disturbing images, and others). This site is a safe haven for users to talk to one another, and to write about their memories, experiences, and daily struggles. The focus of the site is to help trauma survivors grow and learn from their experiences. This is accomplished primarily through a guided process that includes writing exercises tailored to the individual user's particular traumatic experience, as well as peer-to-peer interaction and encouragement through written correspondence.

Writing is used as a way for trauma survivors to acknowledge what happened to them or in their presence. It is a way for them to tell their truth, to explore their memories, to examine the fragments of emotions, images, and jumbled sensory perceptions that often times accompany trauma exposure.

That one moment, that one initial post, when a trauma survivor tells their own truth to a community of similar others, peers who are waiting and willing to hear what that individual has to say about what happened to them, that is both terrifying and beautiful. That is the beginning of the process. The truth is exposed. The truth is known, and it can be explored through further directed writing exercises and through open communication between members within the community who may have had similar experiences.

This group-based approach to trauma recovery has been shown to improve the personal mental and physical health of individual group members. Community members give strength and courage to each other to continue on their individual paths to post-traumatic experience recovery and growth. The group is in turn strengthened and empowered in its mission to improve the lives of its members. Once the individual's story is told, the doors are opened. The individual learns that they do not have to suffer in silence. The user learns that talking about the event(s) of the past not only help themselves, but help others. The individual who takes the first step and writes, then becomes the individual who shares insights with others, encourages new members, and remains within the community of writers. Together, they become stronger and encourage one another towards recovery. They develop their own personal insights through their writings over time. Writing is a process, and that process of exploration, examination, and description is a powerful tool for acceptance and for growth post-trauma.

Although I am speaking of the usefulness of writing as a tool for military affiliated trauma survivors seeking relief from a painful past, much of what I am saying about writing, the action and the "doing" of writing, is applicable to really anyone, and most certainly to those navigating the stressful and often volatile world of higher-education.

To you readers who carry the weight of resentment, disappointment, guilt, unfair treatment, hopelessness, fear, or anger, I say this:
Write about it.
Write one thing that is true.
Let it out onto the paper.
No one has to see it.
Tell yourself your truth.
Write what is true, and go from there.
You have as much to gain from the experience of acknowledging your truth and exploring your thoughts and emotions regarding that truth, as any one else.

The Defense - my experience

On June 14th, I passed my PhD defense, and I promised to write a blog post replying the question "What was it like to defend?".

Most of all, it went so quickly. Only during a few moments, I realized of what I was actually doing up there, and the weight of my words - most moments, I simply focused on answering the questions.


I was frankly curious to see what my committee members would ask me.

Immediately after the defense, I received my diploma, which was yet another moment to remember.

It was quite an experience to defend my work in front of my friends and family, and with a committee of knowledgeable people. I started with a 20 minute presentation only for friends and family. Afterwards, the actual defense was 1 hour sharp, and the committee members could ask their questions - members from "far" went first and received most time, and the last was my promotor. In fact, I was half-way through answering my promotor's first question when the beadle came in to mark the hour.

During the first question I was quite nervous. It was a rather long question, and I did make notes, but I found it difficult to address all the elements that he summed up in his question (and at one point I had difficulty reading what I had scribbled down as one of the points that came up).

But then, after talking through the first 10 minutes, I felt more relaxed, and I realized that I really do know my topic inside out - and that there are elements on which I might have a different opinion than some of my committee members, and that they find that perfectly fine as long as I have a good reason for thinking that way.

During the defense, I spent some time discussing the Modified Bond Model with the first committee member*, who uttered his serious doubts about it, and with the fourth committee member, who mostly wanted me to explain why the results for the slab strips appear to be unsafe - a question that was easily tackled by showing the difference between the pure one-way behavior in the strips as compared to the two-way (or combined one-way and two-way) behavior in the wider specimens that we tested.

The other questions that came up during the defense were about the mechanism of shear transfer, and their relative importance, which I discussed with the second committee member (a more theoretical question), the use of finite element calculations and their practical applications, the difference between plain and ribbed bars (plain bars were used until the mid 1960s, and we also tested slabs reinforced with plain bars to compare to undeformed bars), the proposition about the cracked specimens that turned out to have a surprisingly large residual capacity and the link between the Modified Bond Model and the Hillerborg model.

After the defense itself, the committee left for 15 minutes, and then they came back to give me my diploma, and for the speech of my promotor.

When all was said and done, we had a reception, and in the evening I hosted a dinner in a restaurant in Delft, to celebrate the very end of my PhD studies.

* My defense was public, and you can see the list of committee members in my dissertation, but I can imagine that not everybody likes having their name up on the internet, so I've decided to just number my committee members for this post.

Consider the Internet as a Tool, not a Time-suck

Latest internet-as-a-tool fave: MOOCS!

It's not a secret that I find the internet one of the best inventions of mankind ever. I can't imagine how I'd be communicating with my husband across the Atlantic if we'd have to rely just on calling cards and letters.

Thanks to my uncles who played around with computers in the 80s, I pretty much grew up with a computer. As everybody from my generation, I remember dialing into the internet in the mid-nineties, insanely long URLs, Encarta and the early news websites. What might have been slightly different from my learning style, is that I embraced the internet as a tool very early on.

Of course, I have procrastinated many hours by surfing around on the internet (who hasn't?), but when I am in the flow in my life, I notice that I don't need this procrastination. Those are the moments that I use the internet as a tool.

My first experience with exploring the possibilities of the internet was during the early 2000s. My graduation project from high school was about the political situation in Lebanon (even though I was planning to study engineering, I graduated with a project for History). All the books and theory about the Middle East left me confused. I felt that I simply couldn't grasp it. And so I ended up mailing/chatting with teenagers from there. The social aspect of interaction characterized my learning style.

Another aspect of my learning style was simple tinkering. I never took a formal course in HTML, but I learned it by trying to put together a website. It was tons of fun to learn-by-doing.

As time went on, I became a forum-enthusiast. Again when I needed to study, I procrastinated by replying to silly game topics, but I also learned a lot about music and gigs on a music forums, and I would have never had my signature long hair if it were not for the forums that taught me how to take proper care of it. I picked up some skills as a moderator on different boards, and then lost interest and started exploring the web 2.0.

An essential question to ask yourself when you open up your laptop, is: "What do I want to know?". You don't want to know how person X looks like on the party of person Y that you didn't attend, right? But you do want to know when your train leaves tomorrow, or you want to learn something about, say, a good workout for your poor back muscles.

Try paying more attention to what you really want to know, and also value the skills you pick up along the way. 
You'll start to realize that, once you value the internet as a productive tool, you will feel less tempted to use it for procrastination.

Do you feel that you can be productive by using the internet as a tool? Share your story and reflections in the comments!