‘A Creative Transformation, ACT 2’ in Manchester
‘A Creative Transformation, ACT 2’ in Manchester
This was written by Dr Lorna Collins, the project lead of A Creative Transformation, ACT 2, Organised Alongside Brain Injury Group Member After Matters
I find my way to the cosy, charmed space of The Horsfall, part of the mental health charity for young people, 42nd Street, in Manchester. I am the project lead of ‘A Creative Transformation, ACT 2’, an organisation supporting people with lived experience of acquired brain injury (ABI). Today we are holding a writing for wellbeing workshop at 42nd Street, for survivors and carers of people living with ABI.
The event is being led by my colleague, Eleanor May Blackburn, a queer actor/writer/theatre-maker/poet who had a brain injury when she was 18. Today, I am here as a participant, representing nothing but my own lived experience of ABI, which affects every aspect of my life.
The event takes place in a small, oddly shaped room that is both unique and comforting. People of all ages and differing backgrounds sit down in a circle. We are united by our shared proximity to ABI – either as survivors or carers.
Eleanor begins the session with a couple of introductory warmup exercises and then we start writing. We begin with a simple free flow writing we can write about whatever we want. Words tumble out, and I hear the sound of pens scratching against paper, a rich, fulfilling sound. This is a beautiful, interrupted silence filled by inspired creativities merging with pens on paper. I notice that everyone has gets stuck in to the activity, even and particularly if they have never done this before. I am grateful for participants’ enthusiasm and willingness to give it a go.
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After the initial free flow exercise, we respond to specific questions which point towards the essence of what it is like to live with acquired brain injury: What do I remember? What do I forget? How do I think about my body? How can I create a timeline of my life?
I find these prompts extremely difficult to respond to, because memory, loss and identity are things I have never had the opportunity to face, process or resolve, even though my own ABI was 25 years ago. I don’t know what to say. But this is a free, supportive space in which I can say anything or nothing with equal value and worth.
We then discuss what we have written amongst ourselves and as a group. I am struck by the empathic, compassionate atmosphere of togetherness in the community we here foster. We talk about forgetting. I’ve never been able to talk about forgetting with other people who forget in this way. We talk about how our brain remember some things but not others, and then there are gaps in our memories, and it is hard to remember the day before, or certain parts of our lives. Things like that. We talk about living with a damaged brain, how this affects our everyday lives and how we cope or how we find things difficult.
People talk about how their ABI happened and the two carers in the room share their experiences of what it was like to hear that their child was nearly dead with a catastrophic brain injury. Some participants are very emotional and start crying. We support each other. I do not feel lost and alone with my worries about brain injury anymore; here, my feelings and experiences are not so abnormal, it is not just me.
I am struck by the empowering empathy in the room. I feel connected with participants – particularly about the notions of memory, loss and identity; everyday struggles and trying to cope with these things.
I leave the workshop reflecting on the ways that writing allows us to face some of those unfathomable, unplaceable issues which emerge after having a brain injury. Writing in the space allowed us to come together around these problems and express our responses to them safely, in this community which we have built with our creativities.
We told our different stories, coming together by writing. Everyone wrote something unique, in a different style, but we were united in our earnestness to express ourselves, simply using a pen and a piece of paper and being given the opportunity, the stimulus and the freedom to say what we want. We didn’t have to share anything we say, although we were encouraged and supported if we did want to share.
In this compact, warm space at 42nd Street, we were allowed to be ourselves, with our own individual injuries and their aftermath. We built a green, fertile space, growing shoots between each other and making new connections, by writing together.
This i the beginning. We have written a poem about what happened in this space and look towards publishing an anthology. There will be further opportunities for writing and being together in the ACT community, where we will continue to share our lived experience of ABI using our innate, unstoppable creativities.
