Voice in the Shadows

Quiet.

I told myself it was temporary. A familiar freeze which I could reframe on better days and call a breather. Days became weeks. And then I retreated from reading my favorite stacks. I left the scene altogether. As if I could feel safer that way.

I told myself I’d return to writing when things steadied. When I didn’t feel like a hunted animal and when my nervous system wasn’t trying to stay balanced on a powder keg.

But Fear with a capital F is a beast that grows in isolation and silence. My words became specific and sharp-edged, followed by a retreat to my cave. The wild animal curled up inside, guarding the fire. Waiting. Waiting for the threatened men outside my cave to go away so I could write again. But threatened turned threatening men don’t really go away.

Tracking my movements online, showing up where I hadn’t invited them, reacting to things I’d written with threats. The ground split open and swallowed my voice. It was so familiar and new at the same time. It always comes that way. And even though I knew better, I did not have allies around to dull the sounds of their rage.

Everything, a potential threat. My traumatic past met the current political climate, family dysfunction and neglected friendships until silence felt like the only option. So I shut it down. Shut it up. I did that.

This is what PTSD does. Convinces you that the world is a minefield of violence and evil and soon alarms and exit plans take up most of the day. A damaging impulse towards invisibility takes over, in an effort to support survival.

Last year I finished a manuscript. My first book. Writing it circled me around rocky, old terrain. The place where a PTSD diagnosis first came. I told myself I was fine while I wrote, and ignored how it rocked me back to silence and immobility.

I had been there before. Most of my childhood was silent, as if my voice was muffled, and my ears were plugged. My story and stories walled off bits of me, waiting to create my own safety long enough to speak.

My body responded to over two decades of silence and stored trauma with disease. And by twenty-six I was living in a wheelchair, diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Still. Unmoving. My legs were too heavy to carry my story any further. I lost vision in one eye. Half of the reality too painful to pull into focus.

Looking back at that young, single mother I see her strength. Her power to find a way back to her feet, and to build a bridge out of trauma to share with others. She did it. Unpacked the history, bit by bit. Through writing and countless efforts including alternative and traditional methods. Mostly by attuning to her soul and letting that voice get bigger than fear.

In the past five years, the deaths of my son, my husband and my dog put me up against my darkest pain on a daily basis. I did not run from the grief that crippled me, or the wails from my throat that I did not recognize.

I did not tune out with numbing substances, or dysfunctional and addictive relationships. I fell apart and for the most part, I just let myself fall. I isolated a lot more than was healthy. Different from taking space alone, I spent weeks and months without seeing a human face, sharing a meal or touch.

A few false starts told me I was “finally” out of my dark night of the soul. I treated the grief like it was a job to complete. I would surface and immediately fly “home” to visit friends and family. I worked. I wrote. I painted. Took on some creative pursuits. Started a Substack. Reached out to the dream agent who requested a full manuscript.

Each time I returned to my bathrobe. My bed. Locked doors with a pitchfork beside them. My hands would hover over the keyboard, then retreat. Not safe. Not yet.

Grief, as it turns out is not a job that one can complete. It has become a trusted companion, now. Different from when the first tidal waves arrived and took my legs out.

It was hard to feel rational in isolation. It seemed like everything, every part of my identity, purpose and meaning had been dissolved. What I had left was my voice and my story. My voice would die on the floor unless I breathed it back to life.

Stalking, intimidators be damned. Some real, some fashioned by post-traumatic stress disorder. Each of them keeping me on edge, and quiet. Quiet!

So kill me. But so help me fucking God, no one is going to quiet me for one more day. Especially me.

I needed to get my voice back. Easier said than done up against a nervous system hardwired for silence and immobility.

Last year, I had taken my manuscript to a writer’s conference. Forced myself to be in spaces that felt too big, too loud and too important.

I had registered again, but in the retreat of my voice I wondered the point.

You’re not good enough. Nobody likes a dark story. You’ll end up embarrassing yourself. What if TSA triggers a fight? What if I get dragged off by rogue cops?

But, perseverance and devotion won. And eleven days ago, I turned 56 at the Kauai Writer’s Conference. I am picking up where I left off. Writing a second book. Because writing feels like living. And living feels like the purpose of soul.

By remaining silent, I take over the dirty work for those who want me quiet. I no longer work for them. So for now, I will put the pitchforks away (not too far away) and pick up my pen.

I can’t wait to get back to the stacks of exceptional writing I missed. And my bathrobe.

XO

candlelight in a cave