Do you think of Granny with her tomatoes? Or – not telling – often something deeply important – big, bad, ugly? And when you do – because you blurt it out or plan to tell this person or that person? And not open to everybody but unbottling on media with the illusion you are telling ”everybody” ? With no guarantee of how people – the person opposite, the chosen person or people in general will react? End of control. Silence broken.
A woman spoke about being raped. She was 16 or so at the time, and told nobody. She knew nothing about me, there was no reason why she should tell me. I am certainly not the first person she told. Now in her early fifties, there are good things and bad in her life (as in everybody’s life). Is this is some kind of test? that she tells you about the formative power of this experience and her response to it, deciding then if she wants to get to know you. I was mostly unknown to her – anybody can check on line… And although occasionally I was part of the conversation we came back to her. Over several hours, the shadow over her life.
Chef Jamie Oliver is now very emotional about what a bad time he had at school with undiagnosed dyslexia.
In spite of all his successes, personal and professional, this is the thing he took unto himself, kept quiet about and worked against, and now wants to talk about . You wonder what the process was, that got him tested, let alone ready to speak. Except most of us hanging on to something come to realise – better out than in, even if you have several goes at getting it out to somebody who understands
And memory plays an unsettling role. A 74 year old surgeon abused hundreds of children in Western and Central France between 1989 and 2014. |One of them, now in his 30s, then a 13 year old boy, was suddenly sent a summons to the police station and discovered there were notebooks, names, records on line … The trauma he had buried so deeply he didn’t remember it got in the way of his development. And not surprisingly when it came to light, he had a major crisis. Few have chosen to be named or speak on the record. Another young man abused at the same time, discovered it or suspected it earlier, using drink and drugs to bottle it up until he died. So you don’t know what you are locking away.
You only know there is something, some shadow impeding you, something wrong. Pain. And the fear about acknowledging the shadow, the block, the problem – because you may get it wrong, point a finger at the wrong person.
So bottling risks becoming a trade off between your flawed life and another person’s flawed if not destructive behaviour.
Acknowledging a problem is like throwing a pebble in a pool, worse if it is serious and of longstanding.. The ripples spread outward and may involve all sorts of other people. For example, your child has a skill but pushes and pushes and pushes (Jamie Oliver). Of course you accept it, it’s just him. But maybe – and then it is later discovered – there is an impetus. A neurotic driver. I am sure I did not have the career I might have had because of what my careers mistress called “different life goals” ie I wanted a life.
I wanted something like my parents’ life I learned painfully that I was not either one of my parents. My opportunities and choices were different. But my period of working all the hours God sent was quite short.
And I had parents from the very beginning who told me always to tell them. How do you feel if your child now an adult says “I couldn’t tell you”? And time passing prejudices what has happened. Never easy, it becomes more complicated.
I am not keen on the present glamour of the confessional, but it will be useful to somebody. We used to call trying against all odds “the grit in the oyster” adding “no grit? no pearl.” High price to pay.
Annalog 