Speaking the Unspeakable

 

" . . . Profound change begins with one voice speaking out loud and clear in a moment when silence would be easier."   - Flying Edna 

Honestly, I had no intention of writing this when I envisioned starting a blog.  The subject hadn’t even entered my radar screen.  But sometimes one thing leads to another and this morning the unspeakable came knocking at my door.  I’m not sure what to do except to give it a voice.

It began Tuesday morning at breakfast when out of the blue my husband said, “You know, you ought to write about your depression.  I know you’d be putting yourself out there, and maybe that’s not something you want to do, but I think it could help a lot of people.”

I felt a pang in my stomach because I knew that if I wrote about my depression I would have to write about the sexual assault too because the two were intimately entwined and I didn’t know whether I could do that or not.  Yet, I knew what he was saying was true, although part of me hated hearing it.  The truth is that I have been quite content having only a few close friends and family privy to my deepest struggles.

Why then dredge up the past?  After all, I’ve worked years to heal the injustices of childhood, the babysitter’s teenage son who locked me in the bathroom and told me to be quiet and . . .   

Just when life is better than I ever dreamed it would be, why go back and revisit old wounds.  It doesn’t make sense. 

And yet, it makes perfect sense because now, as my husband put it, I am at a place in life where I can speak from a position of strength and healing rather than pain and despair.  While there is nothing wrong with speaking from a place of despair, when in the depths of despair we are struggling to keep our head above water and don’t yet have the strength to care for ourself, let alone care about a higher cause.  When in the midst of tearing down our own walls, we simply don’t have the energy or motivation to help others tear down theirs.  

 Even though remarkable healing has occurred for me, the easiest thing to do would be to put the past where it belongs and move on. On the other hand, the easy path is not always the higher path as it does not serve a greater need.  And the greater need as I see it right now on our planet is for humanity to heal the atrocities that divide us.

However, healing for humanity will have lasting effects only when the division within ourselves is healed first.  Healing occurs from the inside out. How do I know this to be true?  I know only because I’ve experienced it for myself. 

Direct experience is the most potent way we know anything of value and are able to speak from a position of authority.  Believe me, I would much rather go quietly about my life than write the topic of this blog.  The curious thing, however, is that when you traverse a dangerous river and come out the other side, there arises an inner prompting to go back and help others across the river too.  So to sit idle would be going against everything I know in my heart to be true.

Why then should it be so difficult to speak about a pain that effects millions of women?  Because it is my pain too, and bringing it out in the open means being vulnerable all over again and the shame and worthlessness that once drove my life are hard to admit even now. 

As survivors of unspeakable atrocities there is fear and terror as well as a tendency to minimize what has happened by saying,  "I guess it really wasn’t that bad”, or “Maybe I asked for it, or deserved it”, or “No one will believe me anyway, or will think I’m  making it up in order to get attention or feel sorry for myself.”

I wonder how many sexually molested women, men and children, have entertained similar thoughts.  Statistics tell us that, “1 out of every 6 American women have been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime.”  That means 17.7 million American women have been victims of attempted or completed rape.  Yet, from a global perspective, this is only the tip of the iceberg.  Do you know there are women in some parts of the world who are flogged, beaten, imprisoned and even stoned to death because they were raped?

 I’m speaking up not to impart blame or encourage victimhood but to say that healing is indeed possible.  It is possible to move through the atrocities of life and come out the other side.  What comes to mind is the story of a Holocaust survivor I once had the good fortune to meet.

Many years ago, while vacationing in New York City, my family and I decided to take a waterway cruise over to Ellis Island.  The weather was unseasonably cool for June and passengers were milling about drinking hot coffee and trying to stay warm as our boat pulled out into the New York Harbor.  I decided to move to the interior of the boat to escape the damp air and to jot some notes in my journal. No sooner had I spotted a quiet place to write when a woman over by the window caught my eye.

The woman appeared to be in her mid to late sixties.  She wore a dark jacket and long dark skirt that had a small tear at the hem.  I recognized the intentional tear at the hem of her skirt to be a sign of mourning in the Jewish tradition. I had an overwhelming urge to go over and speak to her.

Her name was Bella and she told me I had her mother’s eyes.  I think that’s why she confided in me.  She obviously had great affection for her mother and happy memories growing up in Europe in a bustling household with five siblings.  Then the horrors of World War II erupted.

Tragically Bella and her family were imprisoned in a concentration camp where both parents and her five siblings died.  Bella would have lost her life too had it not been for a kind stranger. As her skeletal frame lay sick with fever on a cold ground, Bella felt herself lifting, floating high above the other children, the barking dogs and barbed wire fence.  Then something inside her exploded and she was not afraid anymore.  The next thing she knew a kind woman was speaking to her in French saying, “Here, take this.  It will help”, as she gave Bella some pills to swallow.

Bella survived the concentration camp and when the war ended she came to New York where she met a man who adored her.  They were married and had many good years together until his death just two weeks ago.  Now here sat Bella with an immense sorrow in her heart, spilling her story out to me on a boat in the middle of the Hudson River. 

Not unlike Bella, when we share our stories to whatever degree we are able, and when the time is right, we give permission to women everywhere to speak out.  We speak out not in order to harm, frighten, or perpetuate old wounds, but to create an environment where open, honest communication and healing can occur.

Wounds hidden from sunlight and oxygen take longer to heal.  The process of speaking our story aloud to even one person has great potential for healing, like a huge weight has been lifted.

Our willingness to lay down our defenses, denials and survival mechanisms (when the time is right) and become vulnerable all over again means we are refusing to perpetuate the lie, the lie that tells us that in order to be loved we must first be “perfect, or “beautiful”, or “worthy”, or . . .  fill in the blank.

Healing thrives in an environment of self-love.  By self-love I do not mean self-pity or narcissistic indulgence, but rather compassionate acceptance of all the myriad aspects of self that make up the complex beings we have become.

As women we are not very skillful at loving ourselves.  We do everything we can to make ourselves attractive so others will love us, sometimes at the expense of our own health and well-being.  The “perfect” image must be shattered.  The one we try to live up to in order to be loved and valued by society.  But there is a deeper element at play here.

 Self-reflection requires turning within to find our own answers, the answers that cannot be given by another.  By traversing our own inner landscape we begin to discover what is true for us.  And as we unleash the shadows and confront our deepest sorrows, we prepare the soil for new understandings.  A new vitality enters our life.

 The 13^th century poet, Rumi, says it so beautifully I think:

“Sorrow prepares you for joy.  It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place.  It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow.  Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.”

Speaking the unspeakable, whatever that is for us, allows more room for the goodness of life to enter.  May we each have the courage to touch that place where sorrow hides and go there in our own right time.