Silence

We’ve all heard the phrase "Silence is golden," its full version being: "Speech is silver but silence is golden." Until recently I didn’t think much of this saying, but now I beg to differ, and I’ll tell you why.

Take a few seconds to ask yourself what silence means to you.

To me, silence can be uncomfortable, awkward silence with that colleague you don’t really talk to but insisted on getting public transport with you and you both happen to be travelling near the same area. That’s roughly an hour of uncomfortable silence. I’m not ashamed to say I’ve gotten off the bus to wait for the next one just to avoid conversation… several times. I suffer from social anxiety, and I’m working on it. I’ve actually been referred to a, get this, "social anxiety group therapy" … Let me say that again. A social anxiety GROUP therapy… Surely I’m not the only who realises how absurd that is?

Anyway, if you do encounter me in public and I don’t make eye contact with you, please don’t take offence, it really is a case of "it’s not you, it’s me," but I digress.

Silence can also be good for me, for example, I can tell our friendship has reached a new level when there is silence between us and I don’t feel the need to fill it.

But silence can be dangerous. It can be isolating and it can be damaging.

I have a love hate relationship with social justice hashtags;

#prayfor*insertsocialcauseofthemoment*

I ask myself, what does this actually achieve? What tangible change can be derived from the mere tweeting of these hashtags? Who does it help?

Yes I can hear you saying, awareness, conversation, blah blah blah and so on and so forth.

Maybe it’s just the cynic in me, but remember #bringbackourgirls? We tweeted and hashtagged our fingers off but 3 years on, 195 of those poor girls are still unaccounted for and nobody’s talking about it. We’ve moved on to the next hot social justice movement. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not without empathy. I can understand feeling helpless in a world where it seems bad things happen to good people and bad people get rewarded. Some would also argue awareness is better than doing nothing but that’s a debate for another day.

However, amongst the endless parade of hashtags, is one I can finally get behind.

#metoo

No, not the one that’s been hijacked by Hollyweird. The one started over 10 years ago by Tarana Burke.

Burke explains that in 1997, she sat across a 13 year old girl recounting her sexual abuse experience and it really troubled her because she didn’t know what to say to the girl or how to help her. But she later realised that all she needed to say was, “me too.”

Why is this hashtag different from the others? It’s simple. It’s the only hashtag where healing starts right from when you post it. Those 2 little words speak volumes in my opinion, to me they show that:

1. There is a power to breaking the silence.
2. There is a power to knowing that you’re not alone.
3. There is a power to healing, not blaming yourself or being ashamed.
4. There is a power to holding people accountable.
5. There is a power to forgiveness, for your sake, not theirs.

I am currently working on step 3, I’ll let you know when I get to 5, although if I’m being honest, I highly doubt 5 is going to happen, but I am determined, for my own sake, to try to make it happen.

I have been sexually abused by 3 different people; when I was 9 years old, 16 and 24. And it’s affected me in ways I couldn’t even begin to imagine. #metoo.

I won’t go into much detail but my counsellor recently told me, “Yyou’ve had something taken from you, on multiple occasions, by people you trusted, in an environment where you were supposed to feel safe… no wonder you’re anxious.” And I wanted to cry, because it made so much sense.

When it comes to abuse, silence is most definitely not golden. Speech is priceless. It’s liberating and it’s a powerful weapon. I didn’t use my weapon until I was 24, and even now I’m still wielding it like an amateur but like I said, I’m a work-in-progress. My training montage is still in production.

That’s not to say breaking the silence is the end all and be all. I’ll even be honest and say sometimes you might feel like breaking the silence made things worse or wasn’t worth it.

But if you ever want to be free from the demons brought on by abuse, you need to take back the power that silence holds.

It weighs on your heart, lurking around in your subconscious. You shove it down into a corner of your mind but it’s a beast that cannot be caged. Sooner or later it will unleash.

So grab your weapon comrade, be it a hashtag, a text, an email, a conversation with a loved one or a professional. Take back the power.