What's in a Voice?

On Creating When You're Scared

You may have noticed I've been quiet here. That comes as a result of wondering whether my voice has the ability to create useful and helpful change or if it's merely disruptive and self-indulgent. I have actually been a blogger for longer than six years, although I didn't call it that when I wrote about my day-to-day on MySpace or when I filled my Facebook Notes section with musings about my work life and intuitive healing and tried out some fiction.

I've been a writer for a long time. It came as a byproduct of feeling alone in the world because my spoken voice never seemed quite welcome in the world around me. I wrote poetry in junior high and high school and a few of the things I wrote made it to publication. When I started writing on WordPress in 2014, it was not with any specific goal in mind. I just had thoughts I felt I couldn't express in other ways and I was experimenting with formats, from short story to screenwriting.

Lately, I think about what it would really mean to have attention on my words on a large scale and the thought terrifies me. I am a survivor of sexual violence, or so goes the story, because truth be told, I do not remember what happened that night. I do not remember and sometimes I wonder what happened to cause the tender spot I discovered on the back of my head two days later, when I came out of the daze I was in during the assault. The thought of telling this story, of sharing these details with millions of readers, scares me at a depth I have been unwilling to admit. Six months after I reported that I thought I had been raped, on a phone call with the district attorney's office, I was informed that the person I had accused of raping me had kidnapped a man and, with a friend of his who was also present the night of my “alleged” assault, had beaten that man and left him for dead in a remote area. The man reportedly survived. I also survived for ten years after this assault I claim occurred but, for the same reasons that I hesitated to report, I hesitate to make these claims in a manuscript set out for publication. One - these are serious allegations and I don't want to ruin anybody's life. Two - The police report names me as the aggressor; since I don't remember what happened, what if that claim is correct and I am the one at fault? It changes the entire story. Three - I do not remember everything that happened that night nor do I remember much of what happened for much of the time after. There is no story without an actual narrative. Four - I have loved ones to protect.

I think a lot about Maya Angelou's career as a writer and how, as a storyteller, she inspired millions of people and lifted up countless lives. I won't pretend to understand what it might have been like for her to be raped at seven years old or how it might have affected her, but I feel similarly about the voice I hold as she describes hers. She appeared to carry guilt because her voice killed a man. I carry fear that my voice will kill me and hurt people I love. I already told a lot of the story in parts on my blog and in various social media posts, but I have never shared this part in-depth, that I recall. The person I accused of raping me is a well-connected person from a well-off family. And clearly, back then, he had no hesitation about kidnapping and beating a man almost to death. By now, I understand that using my voice has consequences and that if I'm not careful, those consequences can and will be hugely negative. I am not a well-connected and well-off person. And what if I was wrong about everything I said? What if that tender spot on my head and the bruise on my back and that vaginal pain I described in the police report and the fact that my nurse commented that I “present like someone who's been drugged” were all fabrications or mistakes or a strange twisting of facts on my part because I believed I had been victimized?

I did not perceive my voice as dangerous when I started writing about the effect the rape had on me. I just did not have anywhere to say these things I held inside me and I felt they were not things I could share in an intimate relationship. I wrote more about the rape as I stopped being able to engage much in the medicine work I did that I felt helped me through it, and occasionally, I wrote about the way this work was helping me cope. In the beginning, I wanted to share my experience to help other survivors process their own stories and I was passionate about helping people find hope for healing, as I thought I had done. It did not occur to me that so many people could read these words and that real people might eventually be affected. I did not have the capacity to think of my voice as anything that might have real effects on the world around me, since nowhere before had that been the case, and I was used to my words either being ignored or having negative effects on my life.

I'm having a hard time showing up in my creative pursuits. In writing, it's for fear that my words are destructive and will only result in negative consequences. In dance, it's a product of feeling like I've severed the relationships I had in that community and being almost sure that I no longer have any friends in it because of the things I've said about my experiences of it. In other creative areas like singing, painting, acting, producing, it's simply a hesitation to do these things so publicly when I don't have opportunities to practice in a less visible way that feels nurturing and safe, which might eventually allow me to feel comfortable sharing more publicly.

As important as my creative life is to me, I don't know what I want to say or what I can say in it that doesn't put my safety or the safety of the people I love in jeopardy. It is hard to know how or whether to continue as a public-facing creative when these concerns are at the forefront of my mind.

I think about Tori Amos, who was quite open about her experience as a survivor and who was also raped by someone in her audience, and I wonder how she kept going. How did Fiona Apple keep going? How do you keep going as a person who speaks publicly about a deeply personal attack without being afraid of being attacked again by another audience member who notices you? How do you continue performing, creating, and producing when you fear your voice could hurt you and the people you love? As always, I don't have any answers to my questions. I just know I don't want to be afraid to speak and create, and I also know that, right now, I am.