The Voice That Waited
There is a blog I've wanted to share for so, so long.
I've given little glimpses over the years, but never the whole picture. Perhaps because I wasn't ready. Perhaps because, deep down, I still didn't feel safe enough for my voice to be heard.
Years ago, after going to therapy following my father's passing and everything that unfolded afterwards (which I'll share more about in stages), I became adamant that I would never see another "therapist."
Not because I didn't believe in healing.
But because I didn't believe I was truly being listened to.
Traditional talk therapy often listens to what the conscious mind is able to express. Yet so much of our story isn't held in words. It lives in our body, in sensations, in reactions, in unconscious patterns that we ourselves don't yet understand.
It wasn't until I experienced somatic work that I realised there was another way.
Back then, though, I had convinced myself therapy wasn't just unhelpful, it was unsafe.
My mother kept asking me to see a therapist.
What she never realised was that every time she asked, it made me want to go even less.
I didn't trust her.
She wasn't a safe person for me.
And if therapists could somehow make her feel okay about her actions, then why would I trust one of them?
I couldn't forgive.
And I certainly couldn't forget.
For many years, I waited.
I waited for the day my mother passed away because somewhere inside me I believed that only then would my voice finally be free. That only then would it no longer be suppressed. That only then would it be safe to speak my truth.
That is an incredibly difficult sentence to write.
This week, Tuesday in court brought so much of that back.
After being told I wasn't allowed to speak about the day's proceedings, I found myself asking the council member again,
"Do I really have to not speak about today's proceedings?"
It wasn't because I hadn't heard them the first time. I needed to hear it again because something inside me couldn't believe I was once again being told to stay silent.
I wasn't just frustrated.
I was furious.
Because once again I found myself protecting people who were not innocent.
Once again, someone else's comfort and protection seemed more important than the impact their actions had caused.
In that moment, I wasn't just fifty.
I was eleven.
I was sixteen.
I was twenty-four.
I was forty-eight.
Every age where I remember that same feeling.
The tightness in my chest.
The anger.
The suppression.
The overwhelming sense that my job was to carry the burden so someone else didn't have to experience the consequences of their actions.
I haven't felt that energy within me for years.
If I'm really honest, since mediation I've noticed old patterns quietly returning.
Bitterness. Resentment.
Not because I want to stay there.
But because something much older has been stirred.
Then, that same evening, I watched someone become certified as a practitioner.
Immediately another memory surfaced.
A training session where I didn't feel emotionally safe.
Someone who, as a professional in psychology, behaved in a way that violated trust within the learning space. They may have seen it differently, but my experience mattered too.
Another student wanted more practice sessions, yet when I offered honest, constructive feedback because the session hadn't felt safe, somehow I became "the problem."
I couldn't help but wonder.
What is the point of practitioner training if we can't give honest feedback?
If our egos become more important than the people we are learning to help?
Once again, I felt trapped.
Muffled.
Silenced.
Just like I did when I was eleven.
Back then I tried to speak too.
I tried to give feedback.
I tried to explain.
Like so many times with my mother...
It was dismissed.
Sometimes the deepest wounds don't come from people who know no better.
Sometimes they come from the very places that should know better.
The places that speak about safety.
The places that promise healing.
The places where trust should never have to be questioned.
For so many years I lived with bitterness and frustration.
Looking back, I don't think I've truly felt those emotions for the past four or five years.
But this week...
Something shifted.
Not because I've gone backwards.
But because I can finally see the pattern.
And seeing the pattern is a very different place from simply reacting to it.
Years ago, I would have reacted.
Today, I can pause.
I can notice.
I can build capacity instead of immediately trying to escape what I'm feeling.
My mother was a very spiteful and revengeful person.
So when these emotions rise within me, I often ask myself...
Are these inherited patterns?
Or are they alarm bells that have been sounding since I was eleven years old?
Perhaps it's both.
As I write this, I stop for a moment.
I notice the sensations moving through my body.
It hurts.
It genuinely hurts to know these parts still exist within me.
But unlike years ago, I don't hate them anymore.
I'm kinder to them.
I'm curious about them.
I'm okay with them being there because I know they are trying to tell me something.
If you've been reading my blogs lately, you've probably noticed they've become more personal.
Someone recently asked me whether I'd write a book.
Maybe one day.
But right now, I don't feel called to write a book.
I simply feel called to let my voice be free.
To stop carrying stories that were never mine to protect.
To stop believing that silence is the price of someone else's comfort.
My prayer is that wherever these words land, they offer something.
Perhaps they help you understand me a little more.
Perhaps they help you understand yourself.
Perhaps they invite you to look at the parts of you that still react, still protect, still carry beliefs formed decades ago.
Not with shame.
Not with judgement.
But with curiosity.
With compassion.
With gentleness.
Because trauma is rarely one event.
It is the thousands of tiny fibres that weave themselves through our lives, shaping how we think, how we feel, how we protect ourselves, and how we relate to the world.
Healing, I've discovered, isn't about removing those fibres.
It's about learning to hold them differently.
And if you recognise yourself somewhere in these words, I hope you know this:
