Starting the Conversation

Raistlyn Camphuysen recently finished her 82^nd book of the year, while simultaneously writing three creative nonfiction essays for her thesis. Can we give her a round of applause? Raistlyn is an avid reader and calls Fort Worth, TX home, but she refuses to be associated with Dallas, TX. She is majoring in Editing and Publishing and minoring in Creative Writing here at BYU, and she is an Honors student!

Raistlyn has been interested in the Honors Program from the start. The unexpected connections classes are what first caught her eye, and she was immediately intrigued to learn more about a class called “The Good Life,” where they read Frankenstein and studied cellular respiration. That was where her journey began.

Last summer, she participated in a Study Abroad, traveling to five UK countries and Ireland learning about how languages and accents came to be, and also about the influences on how we speak, focusing mainly on English. This experience continued to motivate her to love words, writing, and reading.

While taking her HONRS 320 class and writing her Great Questions Essay, Raistlyn began to consider the intersection of sexual and religious trauma. Her essay explored dark matter and how our eyes work, while also analyzing how we perceive truth, and Raistlyn wrote it with the spirit of discovery! Raistlyn noted she had to step outside of her comfort zone and the comfort zone of those around her to start a conversation that needed to be said out loud. She said, “It’s a bit uncomfortable, but it should be uncomfortable.” She was received with open arms.

She titled her essay, “The Dark is Not My Enemy,” which is also the title of her thesis. After publishing an excerpt on-line, she quickly received 100,00 views, and many people asked to read her work. Typical of the responses she received, one reader wrote “I have never read about that experience in this way and… I appreciate it because it does happen.”

From this experience, Raistlyn learned that “this is something that I can bring out to a broader audience. It is an experience that I can talk about that contributes positively.” She realized she had started a conversation that helped other people feel heard.

Raistlyn’s Honors thesis is a creative project comprised of three creative nonfiction, personal essays that deal with the guilt that comes from sexual trauma as a survivor. The first is a flash piece about how dark humor is a way to connect with people who have gone through similar things. This was the first piece she ever wrote, so it shows her “growth as a writer and as a creative nonfiction writer.” The second one is a lyric essay that uses metaphor to show the universality of trauma responses. The last piece is the longest, and it is about when she listened to “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve” by Taylor Swift for the first time.

She said, “I had to pull over on the side of the road because I instantly started sobbing where I couldn’t see anything. That song has been impactful for me and given me a voice. Also, it was an opportunity for me to really dive deep into what actually happened to me in the sexual and religious aspects of it.” This has allowed her to be candid in her writing, despite its often uncomfortable aspects.

As she reviews the time and care it took for her to write her thesis, specifically the final piece, she summarizes that “it’s been a slow process but not necessarily an unfruitful process.”

As a result of her thesis and creative project, Raistlyn says that “even if it is on a small scale, I feel like I have opened up the conversation… It happens. We all know it happens, but no one ever talks about it. So, somebody has to. And if that person has to be me, even if it is really uncomfortable, then I will.”

“I feel like I have opened up those conversations to the professors that know about it, but also to my friends who have helped me to edit and write and have offered their perspectives.” She has continued to talk about her thesis to classmates, previous Young Women leaders, and now, our readers of the Honors website. We are grateful for her courage to start the conversation about sexual and religious trauma to help us feel more empathy and understanding.

Raistlyn also has some advice for anyone interested in or currently working on completing the Honors Program. She says “Don’t give up! It’s hard, but it’s worth it. When I am completely done, it will be the most relieving and satisfying thing to say that I did this really hard thing and was better for it.” After her graduation, Raistlyn plans to work as a freelance editor for independent authors.