Writing Ourselves Whole: Using the Power of Your Own Creativity to Recover and Heal from Sexual Trauma

Healing victims of sexual assault through transformative journaling: One in six women is the victim of sexual assault. Using her own hard-won wisdom, author Jen Cross shows how to heal through journaling and personal writing. 

Rape victims and victims of other sexual abuse: Writing Ourselves Whole is a collection of essays and creative writing encouragements for sexual trauma survivors who want to risk writing a different story. Each short chapter offers encouragement, experience, and exercises. 

How to change your life: When you can find language for the stories that are locked inside, you can change your life. Talk therapy can only go so far for the millions of Americans struggling in the aftermath of sexual abuse and sexual assault, as well as for their partners, families, and caregivers. Survivors of childhood sexual trauma are strong and vulnerable enough to bear witness to each other’s truths, to share and learn new languages for our experiences, to throw over the simplistic “victim” and “survivor” narratives that permeate mainstream media in favor of narratives that are fragmented, complicated, messy, and ultimately more whole.

What you’ll learn inside Writing Ourselves Whole:

• How to reconnect with your creative instinct through freewriting
• How freewriting can help you reclaim the parts of yourself, and your history, that you were never supposed to be able to name
• How “restorying” the old myths about sexual trauma survivors can set you free
• How a consistent writing practice can help reconnect you with your creative genius
• How (and why) to make writing part of your regular self-care routine – and why, if you don’t have a self-care routine, it’s time to develop one
• Why writing about your desires is at least as important as writing about violence
• The profound joy and power of writing in community and solidarity with other survivors