End the Silence Spring 2020
“There was the time when my body felt taken from me. It was a blurry night behind a rusty car. I don’t remember much except my body’s aversion, how she conveyed no after my voice had been drowned in vodka long before.
I do remember waking the next morning with terror and lost clothing and dirty sheets. I remember my friends looking at me with distant pity. I remember wearing hoodies as protection from my fear and my shame. I remember the doctor who knew what had happened as she listened to my body, my concussion, the scrapes and bite marks while my words, again, refused to serve me.
I remember moving on, quietly, choosing to ignore as an act of survival, and letting the memory fall somewhere dark and forgotten in the back of my mind.
And then, after a couple years of time doing what time does best, I grew and I healed and I felt ready to revisit the memory. I dated someone who gave me safety and with him, my words and tears flowed freely. I called a friend who had left me that night; I bared to her my pain so I could be free with forgiveness. I haven’t spoken to the perpetrator or the many bystanders, as that, right now, feels like a responsibility I don’t crave to carry. But I do believe they would ask for forgiveness if I were to show them my pain.
Maybe most importantly, I forgive myself. I forgive myself for the thoughts of shame and guilt I wrapped myself in for so long. I realized it’s a shame that doesn’t belong to me. It’s the side effect of a wound trying to purge the toxins that hide beneath the skin. It is deeply imbedded in our cultural psyche; it is dark, parasitic, and wrong. But with the light and love of hope and healing, the shameful thoughts become faint whispers that can and will be beat again and again.
I took the bandage off of my wounds. I let the light shine on a dark memory. It would be ignorant to assume that everyone’s pain and process looks the same; trauma and healing take on different forms and timelines for everyone. But I do know that we are all inside our own constant evolutions; we are all healing and while the process is going to hurt, and we probably will never reach an obvious finish line, at least we can trust that the pain will change with time, support, and agency.
With the whispers of my past that I will always carry, I move forward in a different way; my body, heavier with the weight of experience, also carries the lightness of trust in letting ago and strength in rising above. Because when I burn, I know I will cool; and when I hurt, I know I will heal; and when I struggle, I know peace is on the other side. And I know the very painful job of healing will happen again and again. And I know that we will be okay together.”