Traumatic truths and the gift of telling

This article explores how three modalities of writing dissertation, memoir, and autoethnography negotiate the tensions between poststructuralist and psychoanalytic notions of truth as experienced by survivors of trauma. Although the nebulous nature of truth contrasts with the healing powers of speaking one's truth, this article argues that autoethnography in its experimentally analytic potential to produce meaning in and out of original contexts allows the writer to unearth the multiple truths of trauma. In doing so, the writer/survivor can heal while sharing with others the politics and hope of speaking about our traumatic truths.