Look Again
LOOK AGAIN
What looked like silence,
Was an endless internal scream.
What looked like willingness,
Was my submission, my surrender.
What looked like positivity,
Was my desperation for hope.
What looked like impatience,
Was fear that my basic needs were not being met.
What looked like social or non social cues,
Was my thirst for company, my rebellion against isolation.
What looked like flight, fright or freeze,
Was me protecting myself against the imbalance of power.
What looked like sadness,
Was intense grief.
What you called rehab,
I called a place of punishment.
What you called goals,
I called ongoing visions of my future life.
What you called data entry,
I called my treasured life.
Look again.
I wrote this poem in 2019, it was another call to action poem. Post Traumatic Stress landing me back in unresolved history, I was balancing past, present and future at every moment and I was way out of my comfort zone. Dedicated to resolving this volcano of anguish erupting in me - emotional pain. Somewhere in me there’s a secret scientist so I tried as logically as I could to lean head first into the volcano and seek out current knowledge where a hint of solution/new discovery was ethically presented and translated into real-world consumption. Like any discovery expedition, I encountered predators and pitfalls along the way. Dedication to the cause continued to drive me to rise even when I had not been able to demonstrate the boundaries I needed, which leads me to this blog.
Now that I’m back in my para-sympathetic nervous system (rest and digest). I’ve come across more recent neuroscience research, to understand my body’s response to life. I wanted this blog to be about what it’s like to unlearn communication in the sympathetic nervous system (fight and flight). This blog will bring up some painful truths about how people thought it was funny to make fun of me while relearning talking skills.
No, it was not okay, as I struggled to word find, to say to me from as early as rehab days
“It’s on the tip of your tongue, poke your tongue out so I can see it.” How offensive!
No, it was not okay to say to me as I sat silent, struggling to coordinate how to say what I wanted to say
“Well, spit it out - I can’t hear you think!” How hurtful!
No, it was not okay to say around me
“That doesn’t make sense, I can’t understand you.” Without giving me alternative ways/means of communicating. How to make someone disappear…….
No, it was not okay to keep questioning me when I was so clearly beyond my comfort zone and not able to answer questions in a way which made sense. I was in protection mode .
Being back in my rest and digest body, I am still feeling moments when my nervous system had fear running up and down my body like electric shocks to sear the pain into my DNA. Those electric shocks came from everyday living, a lot of the time. Came from words. Came from triggers so thick and fast I didn’t even know I was being triggered, because I was continually in a fear response. I’ve been called a smiling assassin as I’ve avoided getting into discussions of aggression, or arguments that I had no place in. I have limited energy for talking in some situations because of everyday triggers.
Yes, I do have a sense of humour - my humour disappears when there is an imbalance of power in how humour is delivered. I have covered up my pain from social situations where I have been the butt of jokes, I’ve joined in the apparent okayness of ridiculing me. At what cost? And how would it look if I responded with the fierceness of my pain….it would only alienate me even further.
Give me a set of weights, some space, loud music and let me go.
Give me a pen, paper some space and let me go.
Give me some paints, a paintbrush, paper and let me go.
Give me some supportive runners, a winding path and let me go.
Let me stand in front of someone who can take it, take my fierce defence of spirit, without flinching: The closest I’ve been to this is in personal training at a gym, in a private room where I could just unleash my frustration through exercise without judgement. Oh man, did it feel good as the trainer just told me what to do next in the routine, until exhausted, I left the room.
FEAR MOVED IN
Fear followed me in mottled shadows
Attaching itself to information digested amongst cells,
Raging with heat and pain of seeing my life represented in failures.
How to present oneself to everyday life when disability meant:
Exclusion
Exploitation
Ridicule
Assumption
Judgement
Isolation
Burden
and such negative narratives.
Fear swirled while love radiated
And the two became meshed into each moment of my life.
For all the times I stood beside the less popular scenario to love the burden.
Watching people standing beside me become less,
Fear stood beside me
Sat with me
Moved in.
Love presented itself in the gift of waking up to another day with a kaleidoscope of moments to remember, or not……..
Radiate love not fear
Nina xx
I