Speak

My therapist said, "Children are islands." She said that when something is going on at home, something the child cannot articulate but knows inherently is toxic, the child can pretend at school that they are just fine. She said, "You might not know that other children are going through the same thing because the children learn that there are certain things about which they cannot speak."

There's images on the internet, memes, that break down trauma into bite sized pieces, as if therapy can be consumed in a single second and then scrolled past. One image says: "You can't erase trauma, but you can reduce it." It shows a brain with a big scribble in the center, and the next image is of a brain with a smaller scribble in the center.

It doesn't get much more simple than that, I suppose.

Behind closed doors, there are things about which many people cannot speak. They become, as adults, islands unto themselves. They learn they are alone in their struggle. It might be obvious to other people that "they are not alone." But just as a simple meme cannot cure trauma, neither can an outsider who has not, themselves, been an island.

For it is secret, and complex, and lonely, to be at the center of a brain with scribbles instead of coherent structure.

It can be hard to speak.