Finding Your Voice

FINDING MY VOICE

It’s an integral part of any person’s process of becoming, of growing “up”, of finding, and claiming, themselves; it’s the real, audible music of self-actualization, and it’s how we know ourselves in relation to our fellow travelers. For the recovering person, the mentally ill and/or disenfranchised, or socially marginalized, creating an environment of good-will, a space that nurtures and supports the individual’s most tentative or ill-formed efforts, at turning themselves inside-out, at turning the vague nether-regions of thought and emotion—and perhaps pathology—into plainsong, into the poetry of belonging, into the fray of conversation, is critical. Finding one’s voice, and knowing its worth in a world whose rampant and indiscriminate cacophony threatens the timid and unrealized, I believe, is how we know we’re real, and, in its proper perspective, how we claim and take our place in the human chorus, and in humility, know and share in its strength.

The process of finding one’s voice begins with the awareness that we do, in fact, have a voice. The shy, the challenged (including organically brain-disordered), those who have been repeatedly served a toxic brew of shame and/or dismissal from an early age, struggle with this basic prerequisite to mental health.

As a young person, I was shy, morbid, and tongue-tied. I was tortured by many confusing thoughts and emotions, and yet, when sent to a child psychologist by concerned parents at age ten or eleven, I couldn’t speak. I was unable to take the leap of verbalization. There were things, secrets I considered too dark to acknowledge, that I was dying to confess to my parents, but was never able to do so, even though my parents were “good’, kind and open-minded persons of character. Adolescence brought with it substance abuse and depression, young adulthood brought more of the same with the addition of a blossoming and persistent paranoid ideation.

My outlets were creative ones, art, music, and poetry. But I was not a proud displayer of my efforts, and any negative reaction to my work was taken hard and followed by a period of seclusion. That I would be loved (only) for my expressions of “genius” was both my greatest fear, and fierce desire. I evoked an air of seriousness and intensity, but mostly, I was scared—I didn’t know myself, and was afraid there wasn’t a self to know. Not only could I not find my voice, I wasn’t at all sure I had one, or one worth hearing.

My personal journey to better mental health and recovery has been long and meandering, but I see my gradually growing ability to speak (and sing), to think and feel out loud (and within earshot of others), unapologetically, as a process occurring concurrently, hand-in-hand as-it-were, with conditions of improved health, spirituality and self-worth. The places and conditions that made this possible includes, but is not restricted to, 12-step meetings, in my work in psycho-social rehabilitation centers, including The St. Louis Empowerment Center, and during everyday encounters at, say, a bus stop.

Until the last ten or so years of my life, I was a stranger, and seemingly allergic to, the healing properties of small talk. I just didn’t get it, and didn’t see why I needed to bother with this common, yet obscure (to me) art. I don’t know when I started to be attracted by the prospect of discussing the weather with someone I didn’t know from Adam, but somehow I got started and it grew on me. I was already aware that my paralyzing shyness was perceived as aloofness, in turn perceived as conceit, the net result being further isolation and a robustly unhealthy martyr-complex (Oh, Lord, Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood!). I had tried to pretend I was invisible when I found myself in the company of those I did not know, but inferred by my stiffness that those I was with didn’t exist, either. What a relief, then, to commiserate anonymously against adversarial climatic conditions, with a nod and wink, or to say, simply, ‘How ‘bout them Redbirds’, as un-ironically as I could muster (given that I have little interest in athletic competition), by way of expressing to my fellow man, who I may never cross paths with again, who I don’t know from Adam or Eve, and who may smell funny, that I bear you, stranger, goodwill! By opening my mouth, my load was lightened. By giving voice to something I had previously considered insignificant, and an inanity, I discovered my goodness.

I probably learned a thing or two, perhaps, in my twenty-five years of psychotherapy, but I didn’t learn how to begin to relate with others until after some years as a participating member of a twelve-step fellowship. I developed the capacity to actively listen, to people I perhaps did not like, with non-judgmental compassion. I learned resist the urge to script my comments to the group in advance, but rather to strive to share in the moment and honestly. I also have learned, somewhat, to forgive myself if I say something unpopular or less-than-entertaining. I am learning the difference between humility and humiliation, and between wanton hubris and congenial pluck. I have learned that speaking up is speaking out, and that the weight of what remains unsaid is a worse pain than the pain of the effort required saying it. And, that speaking about one’s shame, which is a pain you feel in words, out loud, goes a fair distance towards loosening its grip on you.

An environment that feels safe and non-judgmental is crucial to this process, so, to is a person’s willingness to participate and belong to a group of like-souls. That’s why I, and many like me, have had to push past our tendencies toward ‘terminal uniqueness’. That cold and lonely condition is arrived at I think, from early experiences with rejection and dismissal, and we become hardened, and accept our isolation as predestined and unchangeable. The loner has to be different, apart, and unique, otherwise his world-view collapses. And to find the willingness to even think about joining the human chorus, he needs to be awakened to the beauty of the human song.

As in the awakening I had to the simple pleasures of small talk, as I’ve grown and matured , and healed a bit, one giant principle has made itself more and more clear, that is, that there is great beauty in the ordinary and even the mundane, and in the shared awareness of our common humanity. Thic Naht Hanh has described the experience of beauty encountered in our everyday activities: washing dishes, walking down the street.
Speaking out among and with others, in self-help groups, drop-in-centers, waiting rooms and bus stops, with the guiding principle of that of being a member, of at least entertaining the possibility of one’s inclusion in a greater good, is empowering, emboldening, and life-giving. It is a gift that is much an honor to give as to receive.