Before the tsunami of trauma that was 2016… I had a teeny, tiny digital platform and palatial personal privacy. I liked it that way. Predators expunged my privacy while simultaneously sentencing me to secrecy. I hate that I am on social media because of others nefarious narratives.
Nothing about social media suits me, my disposition, my lifestyle, my mental, or physical health. Nothing. I am not saying that social media is not suitable — I am simply saying it doesn’t suit me.
I like books, beauty, people, and puppies — in no particular order. One glance at the scarcity of my personal Facebook page shows you that I have very little to say about myself. I shun the self aggrandisement that can be so ubiquitous on social media. I have no books to sell and I am certainly not interested in the retail of my own ruin. I’m an introvert of EuroCanadian descent and what the British call “privacy” is all too important to me. If I know you personally, then I wish to know and be known three dimensionally— not digitally.
You are here and I love you. I really do. Most of you anyway. Some commentators are downright diabolical. So I subscribe to the school of mute. What would happen if I roll up my keyboard and fade away digitally. What if I spent my days with books, and beauty, and people? What then?
Trauma has terrorized and also tenderized me so much, for so long, that the things I see and the things I read and the horrid things people say — wound me. I wish to be courageous but the truth is that even though I can be quite hard headed, I am painfully soft hearted. Most of what I read breaks me repeatedly.
I started writing publicly in January of 2017 because while I was sentenced to secrecy — silence was untenable to me. Thus my entry into the digital domain. Regularly I ask myself what difference does it make?
I suppose that in “saying my own word” it may help you to “say your own word” also. Abuse is so damn dehumanizing — it steals your word. Predators speak for you, and into you, and over you. Speaking for yourself is part of becoming dialogical in the face of the diabolical.
My friend Morgan writes it this way,
“It’s the never ending conundrum of a victim – the serious need for privacy and safety is often at odds with the legitimate (and healing) desire to speak our own truth and support others like us. An impossible dilemma.”
She is right.
So here’s to another day of saying it straight and saying it plain in this complex platform that brings me pain.
Thank you to all who see and say so — making dialogue — and thus the dilemma, a little more possible.