It is always strange to me, the courage it takes to say those five little words. I've said them many times, in many ways, and yet... It is hard. The sort of hard is different every time. It changes and fluctuates. But it is hard. Maybe because they are words that many would rather I left unsaid. Maybe because saying them changes me, and whomever hears them, imperceptibly, every time. I'm not really sure.
I am also not too sure where to take this blog. My plan, for months now, was to do a sort of challenge. "The Truth Project": my personal history... the truth about me... in thirty days. Life, and bills, and a million things have prevented that. Or so I kept telling myself. But truth? I'm scared. There are things you start that take on a life of their own. And once they are a living breathing entity, you cannot fully control them anymore. They become autonomous, and should you desire to maintain even a little part of them, you must follow where they lead. I feel this 'project' may do just that.
So I'm going to take it slow. I don't promise thirty blogs in thirty days. I don't promise anything. Because while this will free me, and hopefully help to free others along the way, it will hurt. A lot. Freedom always comes with a price-tag, and the freedom of allowing myself to break a silence in a big way, will bring the cost of sacrifice. A spirit laid bare upon an alter of honesty. The nakedness of a soul that was damaged, and still needs to heal. I'm going to take the bandages off, and show you wounds that have shamed and stricken me...
Part of me is so tempted to stop here. Hit delete and continue on. Write my pain in poetry no one but me can truly comprehend. Hide it in collages and journals and art about Alice and her fantastic journeys. But I know this is unfair to myself. The deepest need in me is to be heard and taken seriously. The deepest desire is to be seen in the light of truth. I have so many friends and acquaintances who have never even heard me say those five little words, let alone know the things that still lurk in dark corners in my head and make me ever so slightly different than almost everyone I know. And I don't like that. I want to be known.
Face to face encounters are hard for me because so often, there are elephants everywhere that only I see. I am quiet at a dinner party, because this is the anniversary of the time that such-and-such happened. I have to leave a room for a little while, because the smell of that cigarette makes me want to throw up. I can't hang out this week because I just had some new memory come up, and it is taking all my strength to process it. These aren't excuses I have felt that I could give to people. I don't know if it was fear, or selfishness, or something else that has kept me stuck in a cycle of lies of omission, but I simply do not wish to live that way anymore.
At the same time, there are some things you don't sit around and discuss over beer and Phase 10. Although these things are always with me, they must be put away sometimes, because life is not all about me, it's about the cultivation of relationships. I have survived the past five and a half years (since I first began dealing with this stuff) by writing, and doing art, and talking with my best friend, and getting some counseling... (something that doesn't seem to work very well for me... anyway...) I need a little more. I need to feel that, while I don't have a secret anymore, I don't have to be silent about my life.
I know I am selfish in doing this. I cannot separate myself from that selfishness. It is what kept me alive as a child. I know that there are things that I will write here that may seem offensive. Things I may write that others will not want to know about me. And I will write them anyway... But I hope as well, in spite of my selfishness, that others can be inspired by what they read here. That if you find yourself between the lines of these words, you will know that you are not completely alone, and that you too can break a silence, when the time is right.
Please, if you have comments or questions, feel free to post them here. Ask me anything. I reserve the right to plead the fifth, but I want to be as open as I can. (And maybe some questions will help me find topics for future blogs!) The comments won't be posted until I approve them, so if you have something you want to talk about privately, just let me know.
So, all of that explanation... I think I'm really just avoiding getting into the nitty gritty. Or maybe I'm not quite ready to spill. This process is going to take some time, and I hope I have the nerve to share a story that still scares me at times. I'm going to need all the support and love I can get. In return, I will give back all the support and love I can muster. Because I know my words may tug at the bandages around the wounds of others. Maybe together, we can write a new story of freedom for all of us to share. I certainly hope so...
I am an incest survivor.
So now you know. It was not as hard to say the second time. So maybe I'm heading in the right direction.
"The silence you break is breathing new life...
Let's piece it together. I'll keep it together.
Well making it through whether or not is gonna stop soon..."
Well making it through whether or not is gonna stop soon..."
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