Is a picture…

Really worth…

a thousand words???

Yes, I really believe a picture is worth a thousand words and…. I also believe a single word is worth a thousand pictures….

Anyone who has lived knows what a word can conjure up in the mind, a flashback so-to-speak, creating stress or joy and all the negative and positive collections of self-talk that we employ to explain us to ourselves. The pictures that race forward from our memories and flood our present thoughts are miraculous in my thinking. Miraculous simply because it proves the complexity of our brains. We know that pictures can contain many symbols that “trigger” word associations and words can “trigger” many picture associations that gather our entire life experiences and brings them all forward to present time, often without warning. And, depending on the “flashback,” it may get stuck repeating one scene over and over like a scratched vinyl record or run through a loop of scenes like the old movie reels before they were cut to a second reel and they would go round and round and continue playing the same movie.

So….. as often as pictures are worth a thousand words…. words are worth a thousand pictures. Words trigger our minds to race through our incredible bank of memories and bring forth pictures from what can feel like a thousand years of experience.

Pictures help us remember words and words help us remember pictures. This is both precious and it is painful. I love that I easily remember the faces of my babies though they have long since grown. I hate that I remember the faces of my abusers. I value the intelligence of my brain to remember pictures of medical algorithms when I need to treat a patient in an emergency. I am challenged by the capacity of my brain to replay the emergency over and over causing me to question my decisions.

Flashbacks, caused by a word or picture, unsettle our hearts and minds and seem to transport us to a place and time we would rather forget, but, the brain, as miraculous as it is, does not care to hide that which caused us pain any more than it hides that which caused us joy.

I have spent many, many years trying to hide, ignore, and reject the painful memories of growing up in a family such as mine.

I felt worthless (a mothers lack and abuse of words are strikingly powerful) before I knew what it was like to feel worth. I felt like air was wasted on me (a fact according to my brother) before I understood that air was free. I felt like “shit under my [fathers] shoe” (his often repeated words in quote) before I even knew what shit actually was. I wanted to shut it all out. I tried desperately to ignore all the shameful and painful words and pictures of the past. Yet, in mastering the skill of rejecting the painful, I also, unknowingly, rejected the precious.

Until just this past year, for me, hell was always the darkest places in my mind where all that had hurt me was kept hidden and, heaven was potential peace that was, far too far, out of reach. I was afraid of my own shadow. I did not trust my own soul. I could not feel my own heart. Yet, my spirit was relentless in begging me for freedom. I have spent six years trying to find my way through my own personal hell and began to believe that freedom from such a slave holder as complex childhood and Big “T” trauma was not possible….. until the day I was done. Ready to give up, ready to surrender this life of hell to death and whatever hell or peace laid beyond. That day, I learned the power of surrender. Surrender to the reality of my desperately broken childhood, to the memories of traumatic abuse at the hands of my mother, father, and brother, and to the crooked path it launched me into. A path of hate and rage, of fury and revenge, of drugs and jail, and a life of poor choices…..

That day I allowed the memories to return and I gave them the space to be. I allowed myself to be present in the deep grief I had come to learn was the most important gift I could give myself. I made room for the presence of death that I had been running from my entire life…. (I know that sounds weird, especially to the churched, but only my story belongs on this page, not the opinions or judgements of others who did not live within my experience nor am I required to justify myself for I have already been justified). Death was a presence that tormented me until I sat quietly and let it be. I wanted to know why I had walked a lifetime with death, which translates to constantly pushing away thoughts of suicide. I had come to discover the only way that I would ever have answers to all of my painful questions of “why?” would be to sit in presence with all that I was… all my memories, all my shame, all my pain, all my wounds, and to choose to be brave. I came to discover, that day and the days since, that being brave is not doing something that is easy for me, being brave is doing what I have been terrified to do. To make space for all of me, to sit and be still, to allow room for all of my brokenness and all of the darkness of my days, that was brave.

The path to emotional, spiritual, and mental freedom is not easy and, unfortunately, it is not easily found. There are many that say they know the way to heal the wounded soul but, there is no “one” way. A person must be willing to try many ways. I found many that represented themselves as guides to the path to freedom, yet they had not yet found their own path nor done their own work, some had resigned themselves to the slaveholder of their own trauma and were either afraid to break to free or did not even believe they could. Others saw themselves as free even though they were terribly bound. So how does one guide a person to freedom when they have never found their own way. In the search for freedom, one must choose wisdom in spite of self doubt, and if one is looking for a guide, look within, for the power to heal is within each of us. I have learned, through great trail and error, that not all who claim to be wise or safe guides actually are. What I really needed was a trusted companion that could walk with me in the darkness that I was in.

The conductors of the underground railroad that helped slaves escape to freedom had already found their own freedom. Many had done so with only a companion or two. When they returned to help others, they never took the same way twice. They all learned certain skills for the safest travel and the most important ones were; they only travelled in the dark; and, they never went the same way twice. Remember, TAKE THE ROAD LESS TRAVELLED, it has less distractions, and is available whenever you are ready. The cost? Your willingness to stay in the fight, your willingness to be authentic, your willingness to show up for you.

Many have asked the same questions over the history of slavery, bondage, and abuse….. Is there freedom? If there is, where is the path? Who can guide me there? Where is the underground railroad that will take us from slavery to freedom? And then, If we find it, are we willing to be brave enough…. to risk everything for our freedom?

Some would say there is nothing that compares to slavery….

I would agree.

But if we believe that slavery occurred only on plantations and in factories and to certain people groups, then we are sadly misunderstanding of slavery….

Slavery has many faces… it wears many masks… it has no concern of ethnicity, country of origin, language, sex or sexual orientation, skin colour, age, status, or time in history.

Slavery is defined as “submission to a dominating influence.”

I know what it is like to be a slave. A slave to a person, an experience, and a memory….. I have experienced the horror of the unleashed rage and felt the searing pain of leather, stick, or hand against flesh. I know how it feels to be forced to submit to a dominating evil.

I am familiar with shame. I know the pain that rips the mind apart and leaves the soul lost in darkness. I know the dark power of words spoken and words withheld. I know what its like to long for freedom….

Traumatic stress is like a slaveholder. Unrelenting is the hold it takes upon a life. The mind becomes the slave…. A slave to memories that haunt the soul… to dreams and nightmares that steal away sleep… to a pain so deep that no balm or medication exists to soothe it… to the hyper aroused senses that find no peace… A slave to that which no one can see…

Scars remain on the flesh of the slave… Scars that tell the story of ownership by a dominating influence… But its the scars on the mind that tell the story of the fight to cling to every ounce of hope… It is the unseen scars that tell of courage and will…. The will to survive… To endure the pain for survivals sake… For freedoms sake….

The underground railroad was a journey into and through the darkest of nights…. A journey of hope…. And the courage to endure….

There is an underground railroad for all slaves… Hidden from the dominating influence that is the slaveholder…. But one does not accidentally happen upon this path to freedom… Only with the courage and sheer determination to search, will it ever be found.

Not all trains lead to the underground…and to the passage of freedom…. But if freedom is what you seek, then you need only a tiny thread of hope because hope will eventually light the way, you need only a sliver of bravery because bravery will keep you moving forward, and a small amount of trust in yourself that you may come to learn to sift through all the fluff to find the real stuff that will feed you along the way.

So… why do I write this piece today? Actually, I have been trying to write it for several days because, a few weeks ago I had to talk about why I have severed all connection, purposely burning every bridge to ashes, with father, mother and brother. Simply their names flashed a thousand pictures before me and I had to choose, in that moment, to honour myself and my heart and soul and to remember that I had found the path to freedom and they no longer held power over me. I let the pictures flash and continued to remind myself, that was then, though their abuse lasted forty-five years, it is no longer. I have created the space for my emotional, intellectual, spiritual, and physical safety and, I am here now, in the free present, with those who truly love me.

Yes, a picture is worth a thousand words and a word is worth a thousand pictures. I now have the opportunity to choose, not only to manage those dark words and pictures of the past, but to make space for new memories and pictures to form and take hold as I learn to decorate my train with love, compassion, grief, and sorrow in such a way that it may be a tiny light for other seeking freedom.

I write this piece today in heartfelt gratitude for those who precious friendships have sheltered me in the worst of storms and have encouraged me even when understanding me was impossible. I also write this piece for my lovely daughter/friend and her amazing husband whose love is both a miracle and a gift that has sat with me for many silent nights of sorrow. Thank you all for helping me form new word-picture associations that are truly a blessing.

with gratitude….