Making the Invisible Visible

I’ve always wanted to tell my story. Abused children have to be good secret keepers. I had to be very careful to not tell anyone the truth. As I got older I thought I could write my story. What happened to me. My feelings. My hurts. My desires. My view.

But I was afraid my mom would read it. And be angry at me. So much of my pain stemmed from her but saying so was a betrayal that would invite more pain.

I even got one of those diaries with a key!

I wrote one page. It was wonderful. And suddenly terrifying.

I locked it up never wrote in it again. A few years later I found it and tore that page out. I couldn’t believe how foolish I was to have left that page there.

When my son was going through a terrible time in his life we reached out to our friends for support. But his problems were too big for them and many either judged us or just backed away. We stung from the consequences of making our story visible.

Today I ran into one of my neighbors. She has been a neighbor-friend for so long. She is kind and lovely. I keep running into her and she keeps asking about my family, which is going through another terrible time. I risked sharing some of what has been going on with her. Walking away from that encounter I felt the familiar horror. What consequences might befall me telling my story? What secrets have I divulged that someone will be upset about?

The real question I think I’m finally struggling with is when someone else’s story intersects with mine, isn’t it also mine? But I also can no longer make the visible invisible. I need to own it all. And I need to be able to put it into words. And I think it needs to be written.