Sometimes words don’t work.

Our first blog was a photo blog.  We had so much to say, yet no way to say it.  For many years we were without the vocabulary for what we were experiencing.  Pictures filled in some of the gaps.

When L was younger, we kept a secret journal.  We were obedient.  We didn’t utter a word to anyone about what we’d seen or done, that we were kept prisoners by a monster several believed was a hero.  Many didn’t even realize we existed.  We were wonderful little secret keepers.  Some of us still are.

One day our journal’s hiding place was discovered and we were swiftly punished, then forced to watch it burn to ash.  We watched as all of our secrets seemed to vanish in the smoke.  Not surprisingly we were not allowed to write anymore.  Our words were no longer safe.

Instead, we would draw and paint, then cover the entire paper in black to conceal what we’d confessed.  When we were punished for wasting paper, we turned to the earth, making sketches in the dirt with our finger.  Hieroglyphs of the terrors we’d witnessed, of the sins we committed, were allowed to linger for only moments before we destroyed them.  This was how we survived.  A child’s mind and body can only suppress so much.  We learned that as a growing population, leaks are bound to happen.  We needed to find a way to let some if it out.

Today we use that creativity for release, to express, as therapy.  In spite of our upbringing, some of us are actually good with words, although most of us are not.  In fact, some of us are mute.  When we learned that words weren’t safe, we, along with a friend, created a secret language.  Sam still speaks it today.  We refer to it as Samese.

Sometimes we’re expected to speak but we cannot find the words.  Sometimes this frustrates people and they demand to know what we’re thinking.  Sometimes there just are no words.  Sometimes silence is deafening.

Disclaimer:  We do not own the rights to these images.  They are from image searches or various sites which allow its users to exchange them.