Before you roll your eyes! No, this isn’t going to be another Encanto movie breakdown or analysis… BUT DO NOT temp me with a good time because I’m not above it, my G. I’m very much below it, because I love that damn movie!
So I came across Ms. Britney Jean’s IG rants about her family and now that she can speak freely, sis is saying the things! I’m super into it! But between that and my Encanto obsession, it got me thinking about airing out family business. In Encanto it was very much about keeping up appearances and not talking about certain things within the family let alone in front of the damn community. From years of discourse with my friends and across social media it seems, a lot of our traumas are perpetuated because we don’t want to air out dirty laundry. But I mean if you clean it and hang it up to dry on a line in the wind opposed to a dark stuffy old room… you see where I’m going with this? No? Idk… I tried.
What I mean is that healing is a much more appealing option, I feel. Agains the complexities of that aren’t lost on me (see previous post). There are some things even I find myself holding in because I don’t want anyone judging me or my tribe, so I get not going balls to the wall and airing shit out. However, there’s also so much freedom in telling your story. I heard somewhere that your story is your story to tell no matter how bad the part others played in it, it is your story to tell! If others wanted to be seen in a better light then they should’ve treated you better or acted accordingly. It’s like there are two readily recognizable expressions in sharing our traumas, we’re either silently suffering or loudly confrontational. I fully understand it’s not just those two extremes it’s more like a spectrum of trauma responses and such, but I’m just going to focus on those because it most relates to my story.
Sometimes I wish I had the balls to be confrontational but that’s never been my style. I don’t do confrontation *stares in APD*. I’ve always said that time can handle a not-so-good situation better than I ever could so just let the shit go. But also some people deserve to have there raggedy asses embarrassed and/or dragged literally and figuratively. I’d like to take this moment to say that I’m a lover not a fighter… Well, I have a kid now so I might just be a fighter after all, ‘cause baybeh, let somebody try my child… I’ma be a whole ass existential problem about Smalls.
I sometimes found myself envying those that could confront things or people head on, talk about throat chakra unblocked. It just always seemed like those people could fight for themselves in a way it took me forever to learn. They could show up for and defend themselves to the death if it came to it, they didn’t acquiesce to anyone’s anything. Of course, I know this isn’t an automatic truth but for the longest time I thought that it was. I longed for that freedom, that fight, to just feel my feelings and be able to just say how I felt regardless of how it made the receiver feel; you know to be heard. Like my brother, for instance, that mofo came out the womb fuck-deficient and string-willed and would make you hear all that he had to say, very much peak Solange energy. I don’t know if it was a youngest sibling trait or what, but he definitely had, and still has, it. Bro stay on Geaux!
I envied him for that for many years. I have gotten better about being vocal so it doesn’t affect me so much anymore, but opening up like that still isn’t my go-to. I’d usually be more comfortable journaling 50,000 words before I talk to another human about how I feel. I can only imagine that it’s because when I was younger the environment I grew up in was emotionally unsafe. I saw first hand how emotions were handled, dad didn’t respect them and mom manipulated them. Too often I felt the neglect and disregard for my emotions, so there was very little incentive to fully open up. I did try a few times to open up, but it was handled horribly due to my parents’ emotional immaturity, they were lacking a few tools. It’s all good though, I’m growing better by the day and that discernment of emotional safety still comes in handy so, win-win?
Whoa! I digressed hard AF. So yeah, I don’t think I’m quite ready to tell parts of my story just yet, but there are some things I can talk about without feeling a way, so therapy’s working. Eventually I think I will in detail because it’s time, but I always come back to that family dynamic of sweeping things under the rug. In Encanto shit didn’t improve until they started talking openly about the bullshit going on, and in my black ass family things are the exact same way. I’m sure it’s rooted in protection, but it’s at a point now where I feel like it’s doing more harm than good to keep things inside. My brother and I have had so many open and honest conversations about our childhoods and our various experiences and it’s brought us that much closer each time we’ve had those hard convos. There’s so much healing when you talk about Bruno.
We should absolutely be talking about Bruno, loudly and openly. Clearing out ALL the air. Everyone doing the collective work of healing familial trauma, not leaving it to one person or specific generation to sort out bullshit they don’t even understand. Do you understand? SEVEN FOOT FRAME… Okay I’m done, y’all not about to blame me for getting it stuck in your head for the 10,000,000 time…
well, maybe a little bit. 🙃