What to do with Unspeakable things
Everybody has a part of themself they really don’t want to talk about. These repressed parts are traumagenic, and for survivors of systemic oppression or severe abuse our “little” traumas compound over time.
This leads to feelings like self-loathing, shame, and learned helplessness. All are powerful internal forces that can drive our behaviour without us even knowing. Our reflex is to avoid these feelings, yet our silence gives just gives them more power to grow subconsciously, until they touch our deepest emotions and actions. These are called unspeakables.
Eventually unspeakables will manifest in emotional dysregulation, often pathologized as symptoms of "mental illness." We act out toxic, even abusive behaviours on others; we sabotage or betray ourselves, and put ourselves in danger trying to silence or destroy the unspeakable. Obviously none of these actually help, and this cycle becomes a spiral of pain and self-neglect.
The first step to breaking the seemingly endless curse of an unspeakable is pretty much what you'd expect: speaking it. This doesn't have to mean melting down to a therapist, or opening up to a friend (these take time). Your effort counts all the same if you just speak it to yourself.
It may be a bombshell--like “I was raped," or “I am trans.”
It may also show up as a small feeling like "I'm so lonely," or "I hate myself."
As long as these remain unspoken, their pain feels everlasting and all-powerful. But even whispering the words alone in your room, or writing them in the corner of a journal page and reading them back in your head, begins taking their power away.
When you speak an unspeakable, you immediately give yourself a kind of love and understanding that was previously impossible. You establish your own self as a confidant, a safe space, and a protector, someone who understands your pain when you aren’t able to let anyone else in. And the next time you need to process a trigger or set a boundary, you can use this moment to remind yourself that you have your own back.
exercise: what are your unspeakables?
the next time you start to spiral, pay attention to the thoughts you can hear in your head. what do they say?
next, move your attention to the feelings in your body that have no words. focus on breathing slowly and describing the physical sensation to yourself: is it in your arms, chest, face? is it a sharp sting, a tightness, or a tingling?
next, ask it why it’s there. I’m serious. focus on the physical sensation, and ask it “why are you here?”. try to maintain your focus and breathing for as long as possible.
words may come to mind, or you may feel a response, but you also might not feel anything right away. it can often come to you later when you’re not expecting it; sometimes it just takes a few tries. just remember that each time you give these words space, they grow to fill the empty, neglected parts of you.