Silence says more than
a thousand words
The importance of giving silence the chance to speak…
It has always been thought that what leaves a mark are the experiences we go through and yes, all though important, not as much as the inability to talk about them. Silence is stronger than experience and consequently can cause more harm. Not expressing our feelings gives rise to re-traumatization, where we relive emotions from a traumatic moment in contexts that are not threatening. The consequences? Our self-esteem, relationships, physical health and lifestyles are impoverished. We go through life in survival mode and when we just survive, we can’t thrive…
Silence and trauma
Trauma occurs when we go through an unavoidable event that exceeds our coping mechanisms. This means that the impact produced by the experience surpasses our resources, not processing correctly what has happened. As a result, a clash between emotions and logic occurs and the experience is not integrated into our personal narrative. When this happens, our linguistic capacities take a huge hit and silence threatens health.
What does it mean for an experience to not be integrated and why is this important?
Imagine the page of a book that has not been bound with the others… You are reading the story and suddenly you find yourself with a void and because of it, the story begins to get confusing, lacking meaning or coherence. From there, that loose page shows up and tries to fit in at different parts of the story, but not where it belongs. This is trauma: fragments of the past that are negatively relived in the present, generating distortion and incoherence.
Silence, trauma and attachment: the mind is shaped by our relationships and what has been damaged in bonds can only be repaired by bonds.
Some traumas are easy to identify, such as a car accident or a death, while others go more unnoticed. The latter, usually present themselves in repeated attachment dynamics, such as psychological abuse, generating a chronic stress that becomes so common that we anesthetize the ability to notice the damage it brings. This is called complex trauma and it needs to become a more frequent topic of conversation as it references the harm that comes from relationships. This is important because our minds are shaped by the relationships we experience and the damage that comes from bonds needs bonds to heal.
Is there a price for silence?
Absolutely. When we choose to stay silent, we pay a price that in the short term seems reasonable but that over time generates interest rates that do not compensate for the ‘investment’ made. Silence is paid either by dissociation or somatization.
Dissociation
Dissociation is a defense mechanism in which the mind separates an event from the rest of the psyche; the experience is not integrated into the person’s narrative, just like the unbound page of the book. It’s frequent to forget what has been dissociated and for this reason, therapists have the responsibility to ask with great care about the person’s traumatic history, addressing delicate issues such as sexual abuse. Frequently, topics like these are avoided out of fear of the answer, or not knowing what to do with it. Socially, there is a systematic denial of suffering and when we do not ask, we turn into silence’s accomplices and therefore, accomplices of perpetuating injury.
Somatization
As for somatization, it is the process through which an emotional or psychological pain shifts to the body, manifesting itself through a physical symptom. Ailments and diseases then become messages that represent what has not been put into words. Consequently, silence paves the way to illness.
Therapy helps mend the binding, integrating your book’s loose pages
A trauma therapist helps transform silence into expression, which eliminates and heals the symptoms that function as escape valves for unprocessed experiences and emotions. Our job is to integrate emotion and rationality, sometimes offering rationality to feelings and in other times, releasing the repression that reasoning can entail. The therapeutic process is focused on improving the binding of the book, making sure that each page is in its place. This does not mean that the book will be perfect (that’s neither the goal nor a true possibility), but it does allow greater coherence and, consequently, more well-being. When we work on this, the story flows and becomes much more entertaining…
Do you want to know more about trauma? You can read my blog Why do I need to know about psychological trauma?.