Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Finding voicefulness......losing......finding.....practicing..
Meh:
--- Quote from: PhoenixRising on March 12, 2011, 08:11:15 AM --- and travel of the waves... I realized - HOLY CRAP - that wasn't just a negative emotion... it was a friggin' fact! This was a planetary event on such a cataclysmic scale...
--- End quote ---
When I woke up yesterday I checked my email and the news in Japan was the first thing I saw, I was busy with my life, then that night after I came "home" I saw some images, I was watching with interest and amazement because it's so unusual. I watched the cars, boats, houses floating away and over bridges and a derailed train.
It looked like rubber ducky boats and cars in a bath tub. Usually with hurricanes and tornados and river floods there is warning and most of the houses and cars have been evacuated. But these people didn't have warning, and I realized that the cars and houses were not vacated, there were people in a lot of those houses and vehicles that got washed away.
The video clips that I have been able to see show things from a distance on a large scale and cut-out at the point where there are individual people actively trying to turn their cars around and get out of the way of the tsunami.
I started crying last night watching all of this. I asked myself is it ok that I'm crying? Am I being over emotional?
Then I realized some people don't even have to question their emotions like that.
Of course it's ok to get really upset about this, it's disturbing. It's overwhelming tragic devastation.
When I had nightmares this is the sort of scenes I saw. This is a living nightmare for Japanese people.
It's on a much larger scale than 911 was even if it's not man-made.
Here is a good photo of a ripple all the way into San Francisco! I hope this finally proves to some people that we all share one little fragile planet.
http://www.zimbio.com/Japan+Earthquake+2011/articles/Rg6dg0022py/San+Francisco+Tsunami+Picture
Pollution from China does reach the West Coast of the USA sometimes so I wonder if caesium can hit the US through weather streams?
Meh:
--- Quote from: teartracks on March 12, 2011, 11:41:20 AM ---
Recently I came across a new idea: There is such a thing as more than one voice!
More than the sacred cow one? Thank you MB, I never thought on this until you posted about it. Then the first thing that popped into my mind was that even if I've found my voice, it is not beyond reproach and it only reflects my voice. It can express anything it wants to, right or wrong. The only difference is that I'm doing it with MY voice, not parroting through the veil of the person(s) who caused me to lose it. It's not a sacred cow and once our voices became full and mature, I think we have a greater responsibility to use it for good. Now the next question I should ponder is, Am I doing that?
You got me thinking!
tt
--- End quote ---
I personally didn't mean sacred cow voice or that which is beyond reproach.
I was referring to something along the lines of finding new modes of expression literally like learning how to play an instrument....but I think I'm grasping a little elusively because it's linked with (for me personally)--not self isolating and experiencing being a part of community in ways that I have not before and to do it without being fearful or something like that. Like reading books to kids as a volunteer-- is for me to find a "Second Voice"
That is more of what I meant. But if it spurs you on in your own direction that is ok also.
I'm not sure I have words to explain it because I'm not 100% sure what I am getting at.
There is voicelessness
There is voicefulness
There is inner child voice
There is the image of "idea of SELF" reflected back by others and the resulting voice that arises out of that
There is SELF that is not formed by others reflections and the voice from that
There is not accepting other's judgements about my SELF and at the same time figuring out how to not retreat or assimilate erroneous ideas about ME
There is the sad me--that is me interacting with my family
My mother wanted to meet me today, she will be here in 2 hours. I called her this morning and her husband answered--in a way that communicates he is dissappointed that I still exist on planet earth. Because my mother is part of his family now---and I am not welcome or accepted in that circle.
There is the voice of me that comes out of that reflection from his mind----"I am not worthy to be alive"
In his voice I hear a conviction of thought that limits who I am. I hear that his idea of me is the real ME. As if his belief has authority over my identity.
Of course this links back to my mother's sickness.
I think he makes a belief about (ME) based on my mother's back-stabbing comments about me to him.
The person that he reflects to me is degrading. (Low-Life)
Of course he also likes to watch Nazi Germany reruns over and over again. (No joke)
That voice. The image of my "not worthy to be alive" ---or "hasn't she commited suicide yet?"----That reflection has it's voice that is part of all my voices.
It's a real experience that feels bad but I hope it does not define all areas of my life. If my mother and her husband want me to kill myself----I don't want that feeling or experience to be what defines my whole being --hence the need for voices of other sorts.
It's weird to say it it and not a lot of people would believe it but I think my mother, her husband, my aunt want me to die.
Just like there is that part of SELF that can be cruel to the inner-child SELF----I think I receive that same role in my family of being the "Inner child self" for the relatives.
I think that is 50% what I mean about VOICE 1 VOICE 2 VOICE 3 Etc.
It's making more room/space in my life for parts of identity---the self isolating part--the community interaction part--the broken self part--the ruined part---the part that hasn't formed yet and can still exist part--
Writers literally use the term "finding your voice".
For people who grew up voiceless I think this is more complicated it's more like finding all the fragments and also learning that it's ok to branch out and have a new voice. There is something that branches out of the hurt child voice. Also, Maybe there are aspects of voice that do not have to originate from FOO wounds. That struggle.
Some voice comes out of struggle---maybe Voice # 32 comes from a place that does not have FOO struggle.
I do think in this case avoidance is ideal--but obviously I am meeting my mother today. I hate her. I don't want to meet her. I have mild anxiety the day before I know I am going to see her.
I will meet her for a short time and then I will cut it off--Ok bye you can go home now. She already told me she plans to call my aunt after she meets me. ----Meaning? She can act like she is normal or something???? She can tell my aunt lies about my life??
I'm going to stop believing that I have any control over my mother-aunt sicko duo.
They are INSANE---- if they were in a mental institute they would be working as a pair to abuse another lunatic.
Can I call them functioning lunatics? I don't want to see my mother today at all. I'm now realizing how long it has been....and I never want to see her. I don't want her to know anything about my life--I want privacy. She asks me lots of questions and if I don't answer she gets pissed off at me as if she has the right to do her reconnaissance mission --for the sake of reporting back to my aunt so that my mother can appear to me a saintly mother.
She is evil. And maybe there is incompetence and weakness to her evil.
Hopalong:
--- Quote ---In his voice I hear a conviction of thought that limits who I am. I hear that his idea of me is the real ME. As if his belief has authority over my identity.
--- End quote ---
Bravo, MB.
Did you do okay with the mother visit?
Hops
sKePTiKal:
Wow Muffin...
the voice that is "working through" all this stuff, is making me go & ponder too!
One thing I see in your comments about mom & step-dad... only because I experience this too... is that it's helpful to have a boundary, even if it's only yours and something internal... sort of an emotional line in the sand that no matter what I perceive (or think I perceive) about someone else's judgement of me... within myself, I do not "grant" them the "authority of defining me". Their "judgement" then becomes their own un-informed opinion... and you know what they say about opinions!
This helps me just ignore them and not feed them... I don't get upset because of their lack of acknowledgement of boundaries and their wacked belief that just because we're related, they somehow "own" me... and that gives them the right to barge right over boundaries and the moral justification to INTEND to hurt or anger me - so that they themselves, can feel powerful.
Go smash ants, mom and leave me alone.
--- Quote ---For people who grew up voiceless I think this is more complicated it's more like finding all the fragments and also learning that it's ok to branch out and have a new voice. There is something that branches out of the hurt child voice. Also, Maybe there are aspects of voice that do not have to originate from FOO wounds. That struggle.
Some voice comes out of struggle---maybe Voice # 32 comes from a place that does not have FOO struggle.
--- End quote ---
This is absolutely one of the most helpful (and comforting) things I've read recently, Muffin. And I do believe you're on to something - you're right - about this. And it's given me the idea, that perhaps I've not understood the connection between voice and boundaries and SELF - deeply enough.
Thanks - I'm going to go see what turns up as make "tea" out of these ideas.
As I'm sitting here on a boundary island on the east coast - and hearing the waves of the ocean a mile or more away from me - I too, am wondering how long it takes Ma Nature to distribute the bad things around... how much... how strong... or if she'll neutralize things much quicker than we can imagine? Like with volcanic ash clouds... a geologic event this huge will affect everyone, in some way. Ash clouds from volcanos halfway around the world, were responsible for triggering a mini-ice age... responsible again for the year without a "summer" season that severely affected food production... and wasn't the dust bowl preceded by widespread prarie fires (like in Oklahoma now?) Where's tt? She's our historian...
Like you, Muffin... my tears come knowing that some people didn't get the warning for tsunami. I don't try to stop the tears nor feel foolish anymore - and I don't have any fear either, oddly enough. All bets are off in the face of something this huge, for me. And in some odd way - it's shifting my perspective on my own struggles. Those are still important to me - but in the greater scheme of things - not nearly as important as the needs of all those people in Japan - so many different things going on at so many different levels!! I was happy to see that the Chinese are pledging assistance; their proximity means that food, shelter, and equipment and manpower is much closer. I'm glad they were able to set aside political disagreements to help.
Maybe Hokusai's wave, was a wave of tears?
Meh:
--- Quote from: Hopalong on March 12, 2011, 07:24:51 PM ---Did you do okay with the mother visit?
Hops
--- End quote ---
Yep, Survived it. I was angry and I couldn't hide it, mostly I was sort of taciturn.
It does ruin my day though--I'm in a funk for at least 24 hrs.
But today I'm fine working on a writing assignment.
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