14 Responses (3 Discussion Threads) to “Writing in One Language, Living in Another”

1. 

   May McLeod

   11

   23rd June 2009

   John, I am glad of your response, and it helps clarify my awareness of what happened in my own family. Although I did my best to ‘play the game’ much of the time, there were actually many ways and many times I did ‘speak up’ – verbally and in deed. I didn’t see it coming, but my own need to stand with ‘the things that happened’ – something to do with that rather old-fashioned ‘commodity’ called ‘the truth’ – actually cost me my family. I was not choosing to ‘lose’ them – it has been unbearably painful – but something in me just couldn’t keep swallowing and participating in the ‘cover stories’… This is not about being unable to consider different points of view – it’s about the way that the denial of violence is, in many ways, the most damaging aspect of traumatic events i.e. the denial that something really bad really happened – it leaves the victim profoundly isolated, and this is the thing which can be hardest to heal. (Vietnam vets, amongst others, have educated me about this – but the same stuff happens in ‘ordinary life’ too of course – inside of the place so many assume we are safe – “family”…)
   For many years I couldn’t find the words to talk about some of the things that had happened. I had come to think that I would be forever locked in this prison of the ‘unspeakable’. Then I read what Paul Fussell had to say about WWI soldiers suffering “shell shock” post-war. He said that actually we have plenty of good words with which to tell the story, that the problem really is that nobody wants to listen. We tend to get the message that ‘nobody wants to know’ without words even being said – we’re very sensitive to such cues, it’s self-protection after all – we’re already hurting and don’t need the added pain of rejection and humiliation. Paul Fussell said that it’s really not a matter of there being no words for the ‘unspeakably’ terrible things some people suffer and witness, he said that ‘”unspeakable” really means “nasty”‘ – and suddenly I felt a fountain of hope welling up – I began to think that it wasn’t necessarily all my problem, and my ‘failure’ to ‘find the words’…
   The power of language! But it is not just ‘being able to say’ it seems – it seems to matter that someone can hear. (See Jonathan Shay’s wonderful book ‘Achilles in Vietnam – Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character’ re a ‘trustworthy community of listeners’ and the willingness to be changed by what we hear…) The power of relationship…
   Me raving! Part of my fear/excitement at taking up the challenge to speak in this strangely personal/impersonal arena. It just does matter so much – this thing of connecting with other human beings. Scary, and exciting… Talking to myself – talking to ‘you’ – a stranger…
   I am glad you said what you did about the rebellion/submission stuff – in some mysterious way what you said has allowed me to accept myself much more – just through this little conversation. Maybe cos you accept yourself – and it’s contagious!
   Anyway, thanks!

The comment form is currently closed.