Inspired to Write, But How - Class Number Five

Oscar Crawford Media

Congratulations upon completion of Week Number Four’s Activity and Welcome to Week Number Five of “Inspired to Write, But How”.   You are here and that says that you are ready to continue on your path to become a writer of poems, short stories, articles, essays, university assignments, and books.  Because this is an online long distance learning experience, consultation via email is available.  Review of Week Four

This is the scheduled activity for Week Number Five.  The following is a first draft on Sexual Violence.

Thesis Statement: Sexual Violence does not destroy the physical body of the victim but leaves behind a devastated self – esteem, a false sense of guilt, a false sense of shame, arrested development, and post traumatic disorder.

This forms the example thesis statement and includes four components the writing project will focus.  Each component will become a standalone paragraph with topic sentence (think little thesis statement for the paragraph).  Add a concluding paragraph summarizing what has been presented and this is an outline for a writing project.

Example Number 1: 

1.     Choose a Topic – Sexual Violence

·         Choose an opinion or position your work will argue for; devastated self – esteem, a false sense of guilt and shame, arrested development, and post traumatic disorder.

2.     Write a thesis statement from topic and opinion with components for support.

·         Thesis Statement including identified components.  Components identify devastated self – esteem, a false sense of guilt and shame, arrested development, and post traumatic disorder.

·         Paragraph speaking to component number one, devastated self – esteem.

·         Paragraph speaking to component number two, feeling guilt and shame.

·         Paragraph speaking to component number three, arrested development.

·         Paragraph speaking to component number four, post-traumatic stress disorder

·         Paragraph summarizing what you have written as restatement of your thesis statement and opening paragraph.

For the second example, I choose the example the Jodi Arias Trial.  I must follow my topic choice with an opinion.  I choose for my opinion, the trial became a travesty of justice because it did not account of the event’s Mormon influence, a prosecutor on stage like General Chang from Star Trek Six, the jury was a second prosecutor, and local media created a feeding frenzy of further maligning the defendant.

Sexual Violence

Sexual Violence does not destroy the physical body of victims but leaves behind devastated self – esteem, guilt and shame, arrested development, and post - traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  Sexual violence devastates self - esteem leaving victims feeling their sacred personal worth gone.  Victims feel guilt and shame afraid others will blame them for what has happened.  Emotional development can stop from the moment sexual violence occurred.  Stressful triggers can prompt victims to experience the fear of traumatic events repeatedly for years.  Without clinical and spiritual intervention, victims can live out the trauma of their experience for a lifetime.

Self – Esteem is a reflection of admiration, appreciation, regard and respect for self.  The better one manages for self – esteem, the better one perceives or feels good about him or her.

Immediately following experiences of sexual violence, victims perceive their souls taken leaving them feeling hollow and empty.  Sacred personal worth feels stolen.  Victims feel they will never recover.  Healing feels impossible.  

Guilt and shame follow acts of sexual violence.  Guilt feels responsible.  Shame believes guilt.  Painful thoughts haunt.  Questions haunt.  Why did they hurt me?  Why did it happen to me?  What did I do to cause it?  Victims can feel responsible for what happened and blame themselves.  This results in victim tendency to withdraw from primary relationships into self – imposed prisons identifying with and becoming consumed with their pain in dark depression.

Arrested Development is an abnormal state in which development has stopped prematurely.  It is a medical term indicating the physical or emotional maturing process stopped.  

A teenage girl raped at age 13 experiences arrested development from her traumatic experience.   Normal development wrongfully and harmfully ended.  Without significant therapeutic intervention, she may languish at the maturity level of a 13-year-old girl into early mid – life or later.

Tamasin Wedgewood reports this conclusion in her work, “What Does Developmental Arrest Mean?”  She concludes, “Developmental arrest means that some aspect of normal growth and development has halted. Such an arrest can affect any aspect of development--physical, intellectual or emotional.”  Physical and emotional trauma can cause arrested development.”

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a clinical term for a group of symptoms experienced by people who have undergone trauma.  PTSD usually occurs within three months of a traumatic experience, but in some instances can present years after the fact. 

Triggers, in the social and emotional environments of victims prompt reliving traumatic experiences.  Others may have repressed the experiences successfully for years to have them return to flood their emotions with painful memory incapacitating them.

Without significant and immediate therapeutic intervention, the effects of sexual trauma can have a lingering influence on the physical lives and emotions of victims.  There is no one size fits all providing promises of healing or getting over the experience.  Getting help, helps.

Seeking help intentionally will facilitate the process of personal recovery.  Recovery is not an achievement of status.  Recovery is the quest to become one’s best most authentic self fully alive to pursue self – interests without hindrance.    

Email Consultation – I am available to you to respond to your questions at oscarcrawfordmedia@gmail.com.

Final Class - Class Number Six – June 10

Monday, June 10, 2013 – Focus on Presenting the Final Draft of your writing project from the first draft you developed.  I am available to review your project.  A model will be presented for a writing project of exactly 500 words.  It has been my honor to assist the development of your first complete writing project ready for publication.  I am both thankful for and proud of you.

Inspired to Write, But How is a production of Oscar Crawford Media
© 2013 Oscar Crawford Media