On silence and being silenced

I spoke out of fear and you ignored me

I spoke out of pain and you didn’t listen

I spoke out of love and you walked away 

So now I speak of nothing

Samantha King : Vow of Silence

I’ve written posts on silence before.  I had a conversation with my cousin on Monday afternoon and she touched on the fact that the Christian brother’s school that her son attends have never removed the name of a known paedophile from one of the wings of her son’s school   The conversation then turned to lack of apology, denial and silence which really gt me to thinking because so many times I have turned to silence due to there being not one soul who really wanted to hear the truth of the way things were.

Let me just add here that for everyone of those who have chosen not to listen and wanted me to shut up there were others who were willing to know and listen and as I have learned to become more aware of invalidation and minimising lately I am glad to say that I spend less and less time with the silencers.  Often silence can be used on us when we confront someone who does not want to honestly confront the truth of what they have done.  I do not fully understand why.  It may be used as a strategy to punish us for speaking up or trying to address an issue.

When having this conversation with my cousin this afternoon I thought of how Pan was in ancient mythologies and pantheistic religions the horny horned goat that was worshipped as part of life’s nature instinct, only later to be exiled; become the scapegoat sent into the wilderness.  What powerful instinctual urges now twisted in hurtful directions have these abusers failed to integrate and what of their own pain, silence and denial have they enacted?  Why do some refuse to confront what they have done, their own hearts turned stony and cold to the suffering of innocent children?

The scapegoat  features a fair bit as an exiled archetypal force shut out of Catholic, Protestant and other religions.  If we exile a natural energy which is as necessary to our humanity as sexuality what is the price we pay?  I feel it is a price we are seeing play out in stories that are increasingly coming to life of domination and exertion of sexual power and control over children, women and the vulnerable.

In and after any kind of abuse we need to find our power and voice, that power and voice and sense of agency that is needed to get out from under the heavy prohibitions laid upon the abused not only by the abuser but by their cronies who also have an investment in maintaining denial and silence.  Feeling trapped, pinned or silenced means we get frozen and cannot breathe, all our words and feelings of impotency and rage are trapped or locked deep inside, many commit suicide or self harm from this place trying to symbolically express all they cannot say.   The abused need to find the lion’s roar as well as a powerful voice which issues from both the soul and spirit’s need not to be pinned down or violated.   They need not only to be heard but have their truth and pain validated and affirmed.  Part of recovering is removing ourselves from the nay sayers without seeking a validation they will never be able to give us, and that stings us deeply for some time, we should not have to be silent about it all, though.

Silence exacts a heavy price as does willingness to turn a blind eye or a numb heart or deaf ear towards the abused or those in pain.   Without a hearing there is no restoration of a power that was once rightfully ours but stolen far too soon.  Dis-empowerment should never be the final word.  How safe do you feel to speak out and be believed?  How often have you been silenced?