The Hands Series

Our body language is much more truthful about our inner life than anything we could speak. I always experienced emotion intensely in my body, but I was taught that I needed to suppress and manage symptoms of them. When I could finally admit at age 21 that, “I was abused,” I realized that my whole life, my body had not only been reflecting emotions back to me, but had actually been communicating to me. My body was worthy of my trust, and it was time to listen.

I experienced aches in the palms of my hands when I endured emotional turmoil or overwhelming confusion. I itched all over my body as if I was trying to shed a layer of myself that truly felt like it shouldn’t be there. I wrung my hands or pressed my nails into my palms to slyly inflict physical pain to dissociate and distract from the emotional or psychological pain. These habits developed into more dangerous methods of self-harm in my teens. My depression and suicidal thoughts threatened to engulf me from a very young age. Since I was expected to keep the abuse a secret, I also could not appear to be too broken. I worked hard to maintain a front that looked like we were a happy family, and that sometimes I had normal struggles like any “normal” kid.

This facade nearly cost me everything. My sense of reality blurred as I turned to escapist behaviors, my health mysteriously disintegrated as I finally presented with an illness which caused me to leave public school in grade 9. I was never good at making friends, but I was made to believe I couldn’t trust people, and so I learned to repeatedly secure my own cell.

I kept up with the facade until after I got married. Suddenly, there was one person in my life who was close enough to me to realize that there was something was very wrong. After countless breakdowns for which I could point to no reason, and endless days of experiencing unconditional love from a human being for the first time, I realized that I didn’t deserve the way that I had been treated. I was broken. And I didn’t break myself.

I’ve been speaking the truth and seeing myself clearly for the first time. I’m learning what true love is, and where I thought there would only be more shame in telling my story, I’m discovering freedom.