PTSD and Female Sexuality in the Aftermath of Childhood and Adolescent Sexual Abuse in Una’s Becoming Unbecoming

Abstract

In this essay, I examine the representation of female sexuality in the aftermath of childhood and adolescent sexual abuse and in the course of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in Una’s Becoming Unbecoming (2015). Drawing from work on mental illness, social justice, and graphic medicine, I investigate the narrativization of the autobiographical subject’s suffering through the comics medium. My aim is to show how Becoming Unbecoming counters the silences and stereotypes existing around the sexuality of abused and mentally ill women and girls. In her attempt to represent the symptoms of PTSD -- itself the outcome of sexual violence -- and to remove stigma from female rape survivors, Una makes use of braiding and metaphors in her narrative. These allow for a complex demonstration of PTSD symptoms and of the autobiographical subject’s desire for (sexual) intimacy as she grows up. In this way, Becoming Unbecoming breaks into the silence and challenges the stereotypes that render the sexuality of (mentally ill) women and girls invisible at best and perverse at worst.