Photo by Amy Treasure
What’s the worst thing that happened to me?
Can I say abuse, betrayal of trust, sexual violence, ravaged childhood?
Was it my brother’s descent into insanity, my mother’s psychosis, my father’s predator entitlement?
God not answering my prayers?
That I needed to pray, at all… like that?
Was it the experiences, themselves, incidents piling up like rocks over a grave? Suffocating, stifling, smothering, endless stretches of grey interspersed with rage just to feel alive?
Was it the feelings, too intense for any small child, overwhelming into disbelief. Survival, a serpentine fog, winding down mountainsides into valleys of refuge, a pain-numbing balm, covering everything… including the wonder, the play, the make-believe, so that even the sound of typewriter keys dancing under my 8 year old fingers, and notes tripping off my tongue were eventually silenced?
Was that the worst thing that happened to me?
Or was it not any of these things, as horrible as they were, but that there were no words for them.
No words, no path, no guideposts. No north star, no lighthouse in the distance. No cauldron-like vocabulary in which to place your experience, no ladle-like sentences to stir in your emotions to simmer and stew, until they’re ready, when you’re ready. Scoop them into your cup, a bitter but healing brew.
And what they suggest, you may have denied, probably would have denied, most definitely I would have denied when I was young, but it would have been something solid to push against… which is better than flailing in mid air as you fall with nothing to grab on to.
Where do these things go, the visceral, the emotional, the painful, the wordless tragedy that preys on the young and the very vulnerable?
Is childhood abuse unspeakable because it’s too horrific or is it just stripped of its voice? No one expects the young to speak out on their own. But must we, as adults, remain silent?
To say: There’s a word for that.
That would be something.
Which is better than nothing, especially when it’s all we have, and we’re too young to ask for more.
