*** Please don't copy or steal this!!!!***
This came from that journal.
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The Scream
If I ever let out the scream inside me, it will be heard for miles. It will echo across acres of land and tens of years. It will be a scream of rage and hurt and violation and of things wrongfully taken. It will put fear into the hearts of wild beasts, topple mountains and shatter the calm. It will ripple and grow and turn in upon itself as it simultaneously devours everything in its path.
If I ever let out the scream inside me, it will come from the very depths of my soul. It will start at my toes, explode through my heart, spring out through my tears. It will freeze my face in an expression of terror and pain. It will rip through the essence of my being. It would convulse my body into spasms of anguish and sorrow.
I would know, at that instant, how murders happen, how suicides are excused or explained...how vulnerable each of us really are.
I would scream the rage for myself and every other child throughout time that has been hurt, abused, neglected, afraid, abandoned or forgotten. I would scream the rage for myself and every other child throughout time that has sought comfort and been turned away or ignored, that looked for answers without knowing the questions.
If I ever let out the scream inside me it would be an emotional vomiting of things rotten and diseased, of things soured and spoiled...contaminated things that sit and churn and cannot be purged by any other means than an immense, sudden and explosive release. For the feelings behind the scream are volatile....and pressurized.
If I ever let out the scream inside me, I will have to do it alone, for I was alone when it was forced upon me in the first place. The scream is mine and mine alone. It is one of the few things I was allowed to keep. Most everything else was taken.
But now the scream wants to be set free....it doesn't want to be mine anymore. It demands release. How can I expect anyone to hold me near? I don't even want to be here...Hide, hide! Go to sleep! Maybe it will fade away. Maybe it will stay... I don't think so. I think it wants out.
It hurts! It swells and presses outward...but I can't let it go!!! I am paralyzed by it. It's got ME captive instead of the other way around.
Or...maybe we're both prisoners of each other....? I just don't know....
23 comments:
Thank you for expressing something I also feel. I wish you well, and I wish for you to be in the present, and clear, if you can do it, please write how you did.
This sums my feelings right up..some times i swear if i open my mouth ill start screaming itll never stop..
I believe that things don't get right unitil the truth comes out.
All that matters is that it's your truth.
Maybe the scream is our fear of what would happen to the others whom we protect - not us - if we let it speak.
Therefore, already knowing what that scream sounds like, could we befriend it, like a wild animal, and see it s our light, not our darkness?
I've always hated that saying "You're truth" vs The truth, something about the one in quotes is invalidating. I've recently been doing some reading up on adult survivors of child abuse as I am one and have a tendency of trivializing it by telling myself "Who isn't these days ? Ya' know ?" but on the other hand I've never met anyone whose grown up in conditions parallel to my own so I'm not sure. Either way I came across this blog here and honestly this rings true for me as I look at everything in retrospect in a very logical way but I have to do so in a emotionally disconnected fashion. Thank you for writing this , it's all best put here through the writings of someone who seems to be able relate rather than through a dr's perspective.
Wow, I'm oddly pleasently surprised to read something expressing EXACTLY how i feel and yet never can seem to find the words. All that comes to mind is a lasting scream. At this very moment... Your poem is givinf me some hope, each day is a struggle though...so I'll bookmark it. Sincerely, thank you. For once, finally, i feel like someone knows my anguish.
The Scream got to me. Thanks for posting it.
TurtleKitty
i have lived with this for 17 years , and have never quite found the right words to describe how i feel, until i read this, you think your alone and then something like this comes out huh who woulda thought some one out there can truly relate
I am a suvivor of sexual child abuse and even at 30 I have a very hard time expressing myself. You have captured the very thing that I and the little girl somewhere in me want to "scream" to everyone (especially my mom who is still with my father today). Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you so much for sharing this with us. Your work The Scream gives a voice to my pain, my own story, and I cried when I read it. It is visceral, accurate, & relatable. I recently tried to confide in someone who was supposed to care about me, and she kept having the nerve to deny that I was ever abused(!). Needless to say, we are not talking anymore. There is a ton of ignorance still about abuse, esp. child abuse in its various forms. But your entry reminds me we are all together in this, never truly 'alone'. I would like to repost or link it on my own new blog here, but I am not seeing a 'share' button for Blogger.... If it is ok with you, I would like to copy & paste the URL, or somehow share it... Thank you, again.
I would like to leave this post up for people who may be able to relate to it, but I'm becoming afraid it will be *stolen*. So, PLEASE do not copy it anywhere!!!!
Maybe you can get a copy right on it? Beautifully written and so exactly how I feel inside at times when I am in the thick of dealing with all this stuff.
It seems that only survivors of abuse understand the devastation. I read this and feel comraderie, but others say "Pull yourself together!"
What beautiful words, what a sad story, that touches my pain, and makes me feel as you do. Does the pain ever end, do we get over it.
Thank you! It's like you lived in my house or in my head. Lol. So incredibly true, except I've never gotten into the PTSD part of my issues yet. I think I want to go to a long term rehab or center which specializes in this. I've suffered long enough at the hands of my past. I've dealt with it through drug abuse, but I don't want to hurt myself or the ones around me any more. Any suggestions?
Add me to that group that knows this feeling. And add me to the group that hopes, with all my being, that I am the last one that ever has to understand this feeling. That it all stops now.
Dear Precious,
Thank you from yet another childhood survivor. I sobbed my way through the article and then your poem...because although it is your poem, it is the story of all surviving children. When will the pain ever stop?
When I was 21, I asked my mother "why?" and "how could you know and let it happen?". The response was "Look at the wonderful person you have become...it made you the person you are". How can one reply to that??
I will never. Never. NEVER let a child be harmed, knowing something is happening.
Still, though my abuse started at the age of 4 and continued until I was in my 20s, I have nightmares and days when I feel like I'm dying...that is the scream coming up.
I send my love, from the child in me, to the child in you, and a hug--stronger than any hug--wish a simple whisper that everything, eventually, will be alright.
Love,
Deaun
I know this scream! I have described it to my 2 children...in a way that it not only scares me, but them also. I cannot undo what has happened to me, but I will go to any length to make sure it never happens to them. There is no soft way to describe this pain and agony to anyone, not even the abuser. I gave up on that a long time ago. What I don't understand, is how, with so much anguish and pain I have inside me, how I can love so endlessly with my children, and express love so easily to them. I want to find a place to let this "scream" out, and become my "true" self that I was meant to be. When I'm told by the person that knew of the abuse..."you think you're the only one?" I want them to hear the scream that I've held inside for 40 yrs. We all suffer by ourselves, but can come together and share one common belief...We are not alone. To suffer in silence is a slow, painful and agonizing death. I'm not ready to die today.
Your poem speaks of what slips out of me when I frustrated and angry with the people around me who unknowing bump into by long-should-have-been healed bruises. But the bruises are on my soul and are hidden to the world until the rage seeps through. I am still so angry for not having a voice. For not being given the latitude to cry. For the humiliation it brings when I stupidly reach out to my abuser, neglector, denial-living mother who reads stories about child abuse and feigns shock and horror of what "those people do to children". The woman who always seems to be a million miles away while in the same room. Unreachable, unapproachable, and still somehow there just enough to make me long for... What the hell what. I am just in the beginning of my recovery and I have decided to stop contact with her. It seems to be the only way. Those old wounds are emotionally unreachable while new ones are being given.
You have posted my scream. It is ugly and wants out. It comes out in tears. Triggered by a rejection from my husband who never really loved me. Repeated patterns of abuse as an adult because the little girl in me knows no better. So all she can do is stifle her scream. Now, as she did then. I cry. It is my scream.
Thank you for sharing my story too <3 I read your words and felt as though you could see into my heart. May the healing continue.
This was beautiful... thank you.
I would like to say thank you. I was lack of the courage to put myself through EMDR. Your article gave me the courage. After the therapy, my life is getting back on track and I am doing better than ever.
Your article allowed me understand that I am not alone. Your words simply described all my feelings.
I just want to let you know, your article helped someone who live in East Asia.
I hope you are doing well.
Thank you for this.... you understand exactly how I feel and put into words what I could never express. Thank you!
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