“Your writing isn’t academic enough.”

A single sentence from a faculty mentor cut deeper than I expected—because it wasn’t the first time my voice had been questioned. I spent decades believing I was not good enough to become a writer. Not because I lacked skill or insight, but because I was writing through a deep wound I didn’t yet understand.

That statement was a flashpoint, but the wound began long before:

• When I, as a shy Guatemalan immigrant child, felt I was lacking academically and learned to shrink my voice.
• When I was told that my ways of knowing—grounded in culture, emotion, embodiment—didn’t belong in academic writing.
• When I absorbed the perfectionism and shame that academia breeds.

For years, I edited myself into invisibility—performing an academic voice that was praised for its polish and precision but stripped of everything that made it mine.

And I am not alone.

The Invisible Wounds We Carry

In my work as a writing consultant and developmental editor, I hear the same story over and over: Brilliant scholars—often from historically excluded communities—are convinced they are bad writers when, in reality, they are carrying unprocessed writing trauma.

We rarely name it as such. But that is what it is:

• The trauma of repeatedly being told your voice is wrong or not “rigorous.”
• The trauma of navigating academic culture that rewards conformity over authenticity.
• The trauma of absorbing deficit narratives about your language, identity or intellectual worth.

Academic spaces can be punishing, performative and isolating. Add in past wounds—whether from classrooms, reviewers, supervisors or broader systems—and writing becomes more than putting words on a page. It becomes a battleground.

I once had a client who burst into tears during a one-on-one session with me. She opened the document she had avoided for weeks. The moment her fingers hovered over the keyboard, she said, her chest tightened. She felt dizzy, like the room was closing in.

“I can’t do this,” she whispered.

What was she working on? A simple literature review. But there was nothing simple about it.

Her body remembered: her first-year doctoral seminar, where she was told her writing wasn’t academic enough. Being cut off in class. Watching her white male peer echo her words and be praised for his “insight.”

Writing didn’t feel liberating. It felt like re-enactment.

Her tears weren’t a breakdown. They were a breakthrough. Her nervous system was doing exactly what it was designed to do: keep her safe.

I’ve experienced that spiral, too. Sitting in front of a blank screen, begging my brain to write something!—only to be met with my inner chorus:

• I teach people how to write—what’s my problem?
• I’m not going to say anything that hasn’t already been said.
• This is going to take forever—and I’d rather not disappoint myself.
• I’m not really a good writer. I’m just faking it.

Even after years of writing—journals, academic papers, dissertation, books—it still doesn’t feel easy. I have to work at it each day. Writing, for me, is like a relationship. At first, it’s exciting. Words flow; ideas spark. But eventually, the doubts creep in. You start to ghost your own document.

But real relationships, and real writing, require showing up. Even when you’re tired. Even when it’s hard. Even when it feels like your worst critic lives inside your own head.

This Isn’t All in Your Head—It’s All in Your Body

These blocks that haunt you as you imagine writing aren’t signs that you shouldn’t write the thing. These are survival strategies your nervous system uses to protect you. And yes—they show up at your desk.

This is all to say that, in my experience, writing blocks tend to be trauma responses—not character flaws or technical writing issues. Now, are there times when folks are challenged by things like time management? Of course. But to me, that is just a symptom of something deep-seated.

We’re told to “just sit down and write,” as if our struggle is solely or partly a matter of discipline, time management or motivation. But often, it’s not that we don’t want to write. We actually really want to write. It’s that our body—our entire nervous system—is sounding an alarm.

Not safe. Not ready. Not now.

The response varies. It’s not one-size-fits-all. But it’s always trying to protect us.

Let’s break these responses down.

1. Fight: You argue with your work. Nothing sounds good enough. Every sentence feels off. You rewrite the same paragraph 10 times and still hate it. You pick fights with your draft like it owes you money. You hover over the “delete” key like a weapon. You get lost in perfectionist loops, convinced that your argument is weak, your evidence lacking, your phrasing too soft, too bold, too elementary, too you.

This is the part of you that learned, somewhere along the way, that the best defense is a good offense. If you criticize your writing first, no one else can beat you to it.

It’s a form of protection dressed as hypervigilance.

It’s exhausting. And it’s not your fault.

2. Flight: You avoid it completely. The minute you open the document, your chest tightens. So instead, you check your email, clean the kitchen, research grants for a project you haven’t even started, reformat your CV for the fifth time or suddenly become very concerned about the state of your inbox folders. Every task feels urgent—except the one you actually need to do.

It doesn’t mean you don’t care. It means your system is trying to escape danger. And in academia, writing often is danger, because of what it represents—exposure, judgment, potential rejection—and what it can lead to: excommunication, cancellation, even deportation.

Flight says, “If I don’t go near the source of pain, I won’t have to feel it.” But avoidance doesn’t erase fear. It buries it. And that buried fear just grows heavier.

3. Freeze: You stare at the screen, paralyzed. You’ve carved out time, made the tea, lit the candle—and still, nothing happens. The cursor blinks like it’s mocking you. You reread the same sentence 30 times. You open a new tab, then another. You scroll, refresh, skim, click—but you’re not absorbing anything.

Your body might go still, but inside, it’s chaos: looping thoughts, spiraling doubts, blankness that feels like suffocation.

This is shutdown. Your brain says, “Too much.” So it hits pause.

It might look like laziness, but it’s actually self-preservation.

4. Fawn: You overfocus on pleasing others.

This one’s sneaky. You’re writing. You’re producing. But you’re doing it in someone else’s voice. You try to imagine what your adviser would say. You filter every word through Reviewer 2’s past critiques. You write with a white, cis-hetero-masculine ghost looking over your shoulder.

You say what you think you should say. You cite whom you think you have to cite. You mute your own voice to keep the peace.

You’re not writing to be heard. You’re writing to be accepted.

Fawning isn’t about submission. It’s about safety. It’s about staying small so you don’t become a target. But in doing so, you slowly disappear from your own work.

What if your block isn’t failure?

What if it’s your body’s way of saying:

“This way of writing doesn’t feel safe.”

“These expectations aren’t sustainable.”

“You are not a machine. You are a whole human.”

Writing as a Site of Healing, Not Harm

If we understand writing blocks as trauma responses, then the answer isn’t more pressure or productivity hacks.

The answer is care.

A trauma-informed writing practice prompts us to shift our questions:

• Instead of “Why am I procrastinating?” ask, “What am I protecting myself from?”
• Instead of “How can I write more?” ask, “What would make this feel safer?”
• Instead of “Why can’t I just get it done?” ask, “What do I need to feel supported right now?”

This practice is about making room for your whole self at the writing table.

It includes:

• Slowing down to listen to your resistance. What is it trying to tell you? What stories or fears are surfacing?
• Creating emotional safety before expecting output. That might mean grounding rituals, community check-ins or simply naming your fear out loud.
• Reframing writing as healing, not harm. What if writing wasn’t about proving your worth but about reclaiming your voice? What if it became a place to process, reflect, resist—and even rest?

Because here’s the truth: You can’t punish yourself into productivity.

You can’t shame your voice into clarity.

But you can write your way into wholeness—slowly, gently, in your own time.

Resistance Is Wisdom

Let’s stop treating our writing resistance as evidence of failure. What if it’s an invitation to listen? A clue to your next move? A doorway into a new way of knowing? Let’s not avoid resistance but lean into it, face it and treat it with compassion.

Ask yourself,

• What if my block isn’t a wall, but a mirror?
• What if my voice needs tenderness, not toughness?
• What if my writing can be a place where I feel more like myself, not less?

Maybe the goal isn’t to “push through” your writing block.

Maybe it’s to create the conditions where it feels safe enough to speak your voice.

You don’t need to force yourself to write like someone you’re not.

You don’t need to perform brilliance to be taken seriously.

You don’t need to sacrifice your health on the altar of productivity.

You need practices that restore your voice, not erase it.

You need writing that nourishes, not punishes.

A trauma-informed writing practice invites your whole self to the page. It makes room for and challenges you to lean into the imperfection, reflection and vulnerability. It reframes writing not as punishment but as possibility.

Toward a More Human Academy

In this political moment—where academic freedom is under attack, DEI initiatives are being dismantled and scholars are being silenced for telling the truth—we can’t afford to ignore how trauma shapes whose voices get heard, cited or erased.

Trauma-informed writing is a form of resistance.

It’s how we push back against systems that demand performance over presence, conformity over courage.

It’s how we cultivate an academy where all voices—especially those long excluded—can write with power, truth and unapologetic authenticity.

I’m still healing my own writing wounds. Maybe you are, too.

But here’s what I know now: Writing wounds don’t heal overnight.

They heal when we meet them with compassion—every time we dare to put words on a page.

Aurora Chang is the founder of Aurora Chang Consulting LLC, where she provides developmental editing, holistic faculty support and writing consulting rooted in compassion and authenticity. A former professor and faculty developer, she now partners with academics to reclaim their voices, sustain their careers and write with purpose.