I have this re-occurring nightmare. The situations are always different sometimes they involve me having to speak up for other people, others times I am having to speak up for myself. In each of these situations when I go to speak I can’t. Nothing will come out, no matter how hard I try I can not speak. My mind forms the words and they wont come out, my mouth stops working to the point I cannot breath. I wake up from these dreams in a cold sweat still unable to speak, it takes a few minutes for my mind to remember how my mouth works. For years now this nightmare has haunted me. My soul cries out for all the times I have been silent in my life. Keeping my mouth shut and my head down when I worked with a group of people that were just hateful towards everyone, back stabbing and vicious. Standing on loading docks and construction sites listening to every type of sexist, racial and religious slur possible used towards other people or in jokes,
Silence has always been easier for me as I think it is for many. I wasn’t the one they were talking about. I needed my job. My family needed me to support them. Don’t rock the boat. All of these little things we tell ourselves to justify our silence, our complacency. They can eat at our souls until they cry out in pain.
And I have gone through my life silent, keeping almost everyone at a safe distance. Hiding how I feel, afraid to let people in because what if I needed to defend them against such language and couldn’t. What if I had to defend someone else from them and couldn’t. Easier to not really make friends or open myself up to other people. Easier to hate myself for my silence.
Why I have chosen to break my silence through written words, on the internet; where anyone can find them. I don’t know. I think it is because words are still so hard to speak. This is actually easier for me, it allows for me to slowly, rationally try and articulate these thoughts. They are there so that anyone can read them. They do not allow me to back down.