“Your f***ing voice goes right through me!”
There I was wondering why I was so terrified of putting myself on camera for The Godmother Network channel. It is a fact that I am trained for it, I'm an actor with decades of experience under my belt. Yes, there's been a gap, but the level of nervousness I was experiencing was an indication of something bigger.
Was it vanity? I'm in my fifties and the last time I was on camera I was 25 or 26 years old. Na, it wasn't that, I love ageing, love every wrinkle, it's a privilege and, ever since I dressed as Euphegenia Doubtfire for Halloween last year, I'm all about that old lady esthetic!
Was it exposure? Sure, that was certainly a factor. It's terrifying to make yourself vulnerable, to open yourself up like that. I've always been an intensely private person but now, at my age, after everything I've overcome, I give zero shits about what anyone says or thinks about me. Why worry about something you have no control over? As for lies, oh, lies, lies, lies, they've been told, I've heard it all (divorce, kiss-and-tell stories, estranged family dynamic etc) and these days, I refuse to even respond. Why exhaust yourself trying to defend against a fiction? I let the universe deal with liars.
Once I'd eliminated - processed - those contributing factors, I was left with nothing. Damn...more internal work needed. So, in I went and came out with a delightful nugget:
"Your fucking voice goes right through me."
It was said to me a lot as a child. Usually if I was crying or 'telling'... basically if I was expressing myself. Yup, that'll do it. Well, not just that, childhood is one thing but once I found that starting point, I realized that early toxic conditioning had been reinforced through my adolescence, my twenties, my professional life and then consistently over the past two decades. Different people, different words but the same message: shut up.
The damage is not necessarily in the words themselves, cruel and dismissive as they are. The real damage is wrought in the identity of the speaker of them. Each time I have been silenced, dismissed, ridiculed, and condescended it has been by someone I trusted, someone who should have had my back. Someone who masqueraded as my champion when it suited them. This applies to my personal and professional life. The feeling of betrayal at being silenced in the myriad ways one can be is heartbreaking, especially when self-expression has become a dangerous thing for you.
I've been silenced in a variety of ways, from the straightforward "You're voice goes right through me," to "If you do this, you'll never work again." Both of these particular gifts were delivered by women who were supposed to protect me, one through basic human instinct, and one because she was paid to.
Later my silence was secured by men through threats, forced promises not to say anything, a blank stare, by blatantly ignoring me and, most effective of all, shouting. However, on Monday, when I made my first YouTube video, there was nobody in the cute little spare room in my house where I work, nobody was shouting or threatening, it was just me.
It was just me.
This was not the first time I'd realised I was doing the abusers' job for them. It's a vile dynamic that occurs after long-term exposure to control and intimidation. In later blogs and videos, I'll explore this notion and I'll also be looking into the impact past experiences and even brief encounters can have on us and essentially set us on a collision course - destination, abuse.
So, there it is, I was shutting myself up. I was allowing my conditioning and my fear to silence me. But I learned something else along the way: bravery isn't the absence of fear but the courage to face what is dangerous and frightening regardless of it.
So here I am, braver than before, louder than before... and I'm starting to love it.
