The Violence of My Silence

One of the topics I've been working on in therapy is silence. Being silenced. Feeling silenced. Choosing silence. The safety of silence. But moslty, the violence of silence.

I'm not talking about the racial implications of silence when I say violence, although I am a brown person and I have 100% experienced multiple times how silence by others informs and enables racial violence.

The violence I'm referring to here is what happens inside me when I am or feel silenced.

In short, I want to hurt myself. I want to simultaneously let the pressure out and feel anything other than like I can't speak and won't be heard.

This may seem extreme, but I grew up in a violent household. Silence was enforced through striking and shaming. So remaining quiet--not speaking up--has been internalized as punishment. I feel bad and wrong. I want to escape myself. I feel imprisoned by my brain and body.

Fortunately, I now have the ability to see what's happening inside my head instead of following through on whatever escape plans my dark mind think up. But it doesn't stop the thoughts or the horrible, horrible feeling that I'm some type of garbage.

I have a feeling this is something I'll be working on for quite awhile. I'm just happy to be able to see the pattern objectively. Now if only I could write about what I want to write about--the reasons these thoughts even occur to me.

Back to my therapist--she suggested I try word to text for those topics that are buried deep. The ones I can't quite loose. I gave it a go yesterday. It was easier than seeing my words recorded. After all, audio recordings are largely invisible unless you plan to tinker with them. I'm hopeful this path of "writing but not writing" will open the floodgates for me.

In the meantime, I'm open to other ideas you good netizens may have on opening myself up in nonviolent ways.