**Trigger Warning- trauma discussed**
If you speak of your pain
You’re too much for people
They look away
They fear pain is contagious
If you keep silent
say nothing about your scars
You’re a liar
Woe betide you’re ever caught clothed
Trauma forces you to walk naked
All the while
You are called obscene
If you don’t expose
Every wound and scar
There are those who will say,
‘they’re hiding something’
If you tell the world of your pain
They’ll say you’re looking for pity
That you’re probably lying anyhow
The world is a loaded gun
For any victim of trauma
No matter your race or your background
Generational Abuse can run deep
Trauma isn’t a race
It isn’t a comparison of who had it worse
I’ve won that fight too often
To feel good about how it makes the ‘loser’ feel.
Trauma is a dialogue
Sadly there’s not garage or shop to
Get ‘fixed’ at
Neither is trauma something that we should
Think anyone ‘virgin’ of
Nor should we prize it
We should protect each other from more harm
Never punish for harms past or out of our hands now
The more danger in the world
The more often it seems victims are punished
Treated like freaks of the moment at best
Survivors are heroes with strength to
Do
Just
That
…Survive
Writing and art helps to tell
Those stories of survival
The stories of strength
Give courage to those who need it
For one more day
For some, writing is the only way
To let the poison drain
From the wounds
Support each other
Love each other
every wounded vessel
Needs to be mended with gold
If it’s to be whole again.
I found this poem presented an interesting angle; I’ve been considering how art presents trauma a lot lately. The line ‘woe betide you’re ever caught clothed’ really jumped out, for me… about the way the media can treat victims.
A thought-provoking piece, thanks for sharing this.
I’ve really noticed a trend of people seeing victims and saying, ‘well, they are smiling here, how bad could it have been’, or ‘he bought her all those gifts, he couldn’t have been all bad’. I had one person read a positive story I wrote about someone who truly is a sociopath. He’s also my dad. For my mental health, while I acknowledge the many bad things he did to me and other people, I try to focus on the good lessons I learned and how he could do amazing things. Someone I gave one of the stories to confronted me about it and said I couldn’t have been abused because I had written a nice story about an abuser.
She was clearly triggered, upset and somehow betrayed that an abuser could be other than a two dimensional character. Real abusers are far more complicated, even sociopaths!
If a victim attempts to keep their dignity, or ‘clothes’ on, people call them liars. This lead me to some pretty dark places as I realized that in order to be believed I couldn’t hold anything back. I had to get completely, ‘naked’ and show all my secrets if I wanted anyone to believe me. It hurt and was demeaning and I understood why more victims don’t come forward.
If I knew now about it before I came forward, I’m not sure if I’d be brave enough to have come forward. I’m sorry to say that, because I i don’t ever want to discourage people. But it is awful and you have to be totally right with what’s happened to you and all the areas you’re flawed or injured before you get help from a lawyer. It’s a dreadful setup that shames the victim innately.
Thank you for taking the time to read and understand.
There is a terrible amount of ‘exposure’ that people with deeply difficult stories are expected to live through or re-live. Thank you for sharing your art and your personal experience so candidly – it is not easy. Poetry reaches ears that are open to listening.
Some people find it incongruous to see a person being strong but that same person as a victim. It’s not binary. There’s no way to slice someone else’s life neatly. Just listening and understanding, maybe that’s all life should be about.