In a Second Language, I Opened UP the Past Trauma
Some trauma was too deep to write in a Mother Tongue.
I started writing in English as a way to express my darkness and let some sunlight shine in.
Even though I’ve written nearly 200 articles, there are still a lot of posts that leave me feeling confused, either about the titles or the content. They make me question myself: “What’s the point?”, “Who wrote this?”, “Was I drugged?”, “Was I begging in writing?”
However, I continue, and nothing is bothering me. I seldom feel offended by the criticism of my English writing. I started writing in English as a way to express my darkness and let some sunlight shine in.
Some traumas were too much to write down.
By writing in a second language, restrained by limited writing rules and vocabulary, I could express some dark energy in simple words without complicating it.
I guess it was like being an outsider to write about my depression in a foreign language. It might sound shallow to deal with my emotional issues instead of digging to the core to fix the roots, but to have completely new skin, I want to peel off the thick callous, see the pink-red wound and tend to it into a smooth appearance.
To endure the whole time-consuming ordeal, I need to not be too specific and sensitive on every word to drain the cogged twisting mind, like a baby crying out to express without any explanation.
One article after another, the chain becomes less tight around my neck. I regain the ability to cry, feel, and think.
When I regain the consciousness of feeling sad with tears, angry with energy, and happy with laughter. Criticism is a sign I finally reconnected to the human world.
It would read like an End Your Life manuscript if I wrote the past in a native language, but in a second language, my mindset was somehow broad enough to face the regret, my words were simple enough to express the failure, and my courage was blind enough to share both suffocating and refreshing moments in life.
My mother has been in denial since I started writing in English. I started writing poems and keeping a diary since four and earned so many rewards in writing contests, delivered speeches in both Mandarin and the local languages, and attended debating contests.
But writing is life; I changed my writing to move on in life, and only moving on can make me have a future.
