Narrative (Re)Righting: Recovering and Rebuilding a Life Rocked by Trauma

ABSTRACT

In this paper, I write about and through my recent brush with death to narrate myself out of fear and desperation and into hope and acceptance. Storytelling helps me sort through the rubble and make sense of my life repeatedly rocked by trauma. Narrative reframing takes me a step further, empowering me to rebuild and reinvent my life through the stories I choose to tell as I move forward. Through this work, I am reminded rebuilding is temporary, continual, and precarious; and not only possible, but important and necessary.

KEYWORDS:

• Autoethnography
• automobile accident
• crash
• narrative reframing
• trauma
• wreck

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Dr. Arthur Bochner and Dr. Carolyn Ellis for their guidance, care, and thoughtful feedback.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lisa P. Spinazola

Lisa P. Spinazola is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Communication at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida. For her dissertation project, she facilitates journaling and storytelling groups (exploring emotions, trauma, and relationships) at The Salvation Army with men who struggle with addiction and homelessness. The project answers the question, What stories do these men tell about themselves, the world, and their place in the world? She will use this research to create a curriculum for incarcerated adolescents and facilitate groups for the Department of Juvenile Justice. Other passions include photography, karaoke, and writing.