JANUARY PROMPT — TRAPPED INSIDE

Breaking A Lifetime of Silence and Speaking Up

Finding the courage to take action

As a child, I’d witnessed abuse in my family home, and I’d been helpless to do anything about it.

As an adult, in my thirties, I was in therapy and coming to terms with my own abuse.

As I waited to see my family doctor I witnessed a mother abusing her children in the waiting room. You can read it here.

But I couldn’t speak up.

I didn’t know how to deal with it.

A lifetime of silence and inaction took over.

I felt as I had as a child in my own family. No one else seemed to notice what was going on. I felt alone. So helpless. Felt there was no one I could turn to.

Instead of dissociating, I grounded myself by taking out a tiny notepad and pen from my purse and writing everything I saw and heard down.

I felt trapped inside a nightmare.

The situation made me feel crazy. Just as I’d felt growing up.

Could I trust my eyes and ears? Was this really real? I dismissed those fears and kept taking notes.

I needed the words on paper. Needed to capture it to make it real. I needed proof.

I wrote fast, to keep up with the dialogue and actions.

How could this woman not notice me? Not wonder what I was scribbling down in a tiny notebook. Page after page.

It was as if I was invisible. A fly on the wall. I wondered if I was really there. Did I even exist? Again, this was how I’d often felt as a child.

I was relieved when the family was called in to see the doctor. It gave me the chance to stop holding my breath. To be able to breathe again.

I had wanted so badly to do something. Wanted to jump up and put a stop to it. But feared others would think I was overreacting. Stepping out of bounds. Sticking my nose where it didn’t belong.

I wanted to report the incident but feared I wouldn’t be believed.

When I saw the doctor, I said nothing about what I’d witnessed in her waiting room.

Still shaken and upset, at home, I took out my notes and wrote about it.

Over the next few months, I often read what I’d written and cried, and felt I needed to do something.

It took four months before I could find the strength to tell my doctor what I’d witnessed that day in her waiting room.

I told her during an appointment as she took out stitches from the removal of a skin tag on my neck. I told her while she taught me how to tie skin tags off while they were still small enough, to avoid more minor surgery.

That day I also needed a tetanus shot. Earlier that day I’d stepped on a nail in my studio. All the while she tended to my needs, I told her about what I’d witnessed that day.

Before I left, I handed her a copy of the notes I’d taken that day. Also a copy of the story I’d written.

She didn’t disbelieve me. She told me to write a letter to the Department of Community Services, to Child Protection Services and give it to her and she would attach the family’s name to it.

The next week when I returned to the doctor, she told me how moved she’d been by what I’d written. That it had really affected her. Made it so much more real than what I’d told her.

“It felt like I was there,” she said. “Experiencing it.”

She told me she had let her husband read it. That he’d asked who wrote it. Where it had come from. She said she told him I was a fabric artist. That he’d seen my work in town, in The Moorings Art Gallery.

“He couldn’t believe this had happened in my waiting room,” she said. “He also said that you should be a writer.”

She asked permission to show it to the other doctors in the office. I told her she could share it with whomever she wanted.

She suggested I do something with it. “Put it out there. For others to read.” But I was still too shy and insecure about my writing. Didn’t think I was good enough. Didn’t think I could call myself a writer.

We discussed the woman and her children. They are nameless to me. She said they’d been back to see her. That she observed them more. Told the mother she could take the kids outside to play. That the secretary would call when it was their turn.

I suggested she put blank paper, pencils, and crayons in the waiting room for the kids to draw on. That it might help distract them and keep them occupied. “That’s a great idea,” she said.

She told me she noticed how the mother kept things under control in front of her.

It felt so good to have my observations validated. To be believed. To talk to someone about it. To not let it all remain trapped inside me.

Finally, I had been able to break the pattern of silence from my childhood. To no longer remain a helpless observer. I had finally spoken up and did something about it!

Growing up, I’d had no one help me. I had to figure it out on my own. There were no messages on TV about Run, Yell and Tell. No guidance for what to do in dangerous situations. Instead, I had been taught to shut my mouth and accept what happened around me as normal.

I hoped these kids would learn that the way their mother treated them wasn’t okay. That the problem was her, not them.

I hoped they’d be able to heal much sooner than I had.

I also hoped the mother could receive the help she needed. That she could change.

The following year, in January 1995, at another doctor’s appointment, I asked if she’d heard from social services about the report we filed.

She told me she knew they had visited her and had helped the woman with her parenting skills. That her parenting skills had been really low. They also had the doctor continue to monitor the family.

Then in the summer, I noticed the mother from the waiting room at the town swimming pool with her children. It would be the first time I’d hear the children’s names.

It felt a bit strange to have such intimate knowledge about this woman who was a stranger to me. That she had no idea what part I had played in her recent life.

She didn’t know how her actions had triggered me. How it had changed me. Helped me find my voice. Empowered me. How she had set off what would help me no longer remain the helpless, silent observer I’d always been.

She had no idea how I hopefully helped her and her children.