I am reading "The Unsayable" by Annie G. Rogers. It is her view of how abused children live their lives after the trauma, when it goes unnoticed, unheard and unaddressed, how we live our lives in code, repeating the abuse over and over to be heard.
I know it sounds insane, but the unconscious wants to be seen, to be reconciled with the reality of what was, and is relentless so that you and your life are at peace, where the columns are in harmony; where negative is in the negative column and positive stands under positive.
"Trauma is so much like tipping a snow globe and watching the snow descend on the same scene in the same way. Whatever is unresolved and unsayable repeats." Annie
This is what is so tricky and so relenting, that it doesn't matter if you accept and acknowledge and fully bring in the abuse; you will repeat it, until you fully understand all the nuiances of it.
What is incredible to me that even if you are not willing to talk about it, and will not resolve your life, your life will reflect that which you are not wanting to see. It is there in full view.
You are living your unconscious truths, even if you your self are not willing to know you. It is there in full living color each day.
"She tacked back and forth between resistance and speaking and I saw that it wasn't simply that she didn't want to speak or remember. Tasha wanted to speak and to avoid speaking (and remembering) simultaneously. I began to hear the "unsayable" as something that moves toward speech and away from speech at the same time." Annie
What Annie is so briliant at, is to hear and discern what isn't being said and to read the code by behavior and even the words that are repeated in the context of talking about that which you don't want to talk about.
I do get this. I notice what excuses are being used, how we speak but don't say...yet say by what we do. What people are drawn to and away from...all are messages.
If this sounds confusing it clearly is. But, it also clearly shows how most of us live.
I found great comfort in that the actions after the trauma are here to be heard, that we don't repeat this behavior for no other reason. That the truth is working its way into our awareness, if you are willing to see who you truly are. How you were built and why.
She also says how we are born into this language....
"While every child is assigned a place in language by being given a name, and every child is born to fill what Lacan calls a "Lack", an unconscious hole left by a previous generation, the lack Ellen was required to fill was born of horror. Her very name, its "el" sound, pointed back to Helen and Helene. Ellen arrived to fill a hole or lack in her mother, passed down from her mother, by her grandmother."
This does make sense to me. I saw and felt that we were there to serve thy mother...and not to have our own life. It is that there is a gapping hole that needs to be filled and taken care of, before you are free to live your life. But, only to find out while you are filling her hole, your own hole is left empty. And her hole will never be full. She will always need. That is the language.
Not only is there a hole to fill, but we use our children to fill it up.
My emptiness was my children's problem. My insecurities were theirs to make better. The insanity would have continued, if I hadn't become aware of my unawareness and what it was trying to tell me.
I lived the language I was born into until I understood the language. Once I understood that my actions were serving to keep abuse alive and well, and that I was an active participant by not seeing etc....I had to begin speaking differently in all my words and deeds...and to be extremely aware of what my feelings were and what I expected of others.
I wasn't free until I was free from believing that others need to fill my hole.
Until I recognized that I was responsible for building me...and for tearing down the old me.
Her books are brilliant not only in showing how we were built, but also in de-coding and how to live differently.
I love how it explains me...and how it explains how abuse thrives. It is the language of abuse.
