8:07 a.m. - November 04, 2003
Now that ipecac is discouraged, what else is there?
Yesterday at the group I wasn't the first to speak and was often the last, prompting one of the facilitators to address me specifically and inquire into my lack of sharing. I am not (yet?) wholly comfortable and find it difficult to talk about my own experiences, constantly amazed (and envious) of two who can rattle off their stories. I feel shameful and embarrassed when I've said nothing at all, and when I do speak, it is in generalities prompted by direct questions. Chalk it up to trust or security? I sit there listening to the other guys talk and I yearn - yearn - to be as free and matter of fact, how much I'd like to say easily I was repeatedly molested by the next door neighbor beginning when I was 8 and ending when I was 11 and I am angry at him / family / myself but my tongue, my vocal apparatus seizes up and I simply nod my head, tracing designs on the carpet. It is as if there is a hand over my mouth or weighing down my tongue, some sort of lexical tug-of-war between that need to talk and years of bottling it up. There are far more henchmen intent on keeping quiet than lone voices seeking to spill.
The difference between here and the group sanctum is that I don't worry about your eyes looking at me, judging, thinking, rolling. I want so much to talk and I fear people don't want to listen to me fumble as I learn to speak.
