5. Chapter Five #5
But what if that wasn’t the question and I say yes and then it turns out I agreed to something else-
“Matt?” I meet his eyes. It’s a little hard to breathe. When did it get hard to breathe? “Would it be okay if Dr. Deacon and I trade information about your care? Just the two of us. No one else.”
Okay. That’s easy. Or easier, at least.
I don’t actually know how I feel about that, but I don’t want to take too much time, so I’ll just say yes. I even make myself move to tap the card instead of just nodding.
He smiles. Right answer, then.
It’s a little easier to breathe.
"Thank you. I will let him know that’s what you decided.
” He shifts in his chair, adjusting where the journal lays on his thigh.
I realize he still hasn’t opened it. “I want to make it clear that this is another thing that you can change your mind about, though. It’s really important to me that you understand that.
You can change your mind about anything, as often as you want.
There are no rules. You can’t disappoint me or do the wrong thing.
You have all of the control here. This is your therapy. Okay?”
It sounds nice. Too good to be true, especially with the way his smiles tell me if my answers are right or wrong, but still nice.
“Do you understand that, Matt?”
No.
I nod.
He smiles, looking a little relieved as he does. Another right answer, then, regardless of what he just claimed.
“Then I just have one more question for you and we can be finished here. Is that alright? We can be done now, if you need. Yes for continue and no for being done now,” he says as he points at each corresponding card. “What do you think, Matt? One more question?”
Being done now sounds better, but one more question can’t be that bad. Then it’s finished. Otherwise I’ll spend all my time worrying about what the question is, anyway. It’s best to get it over with.
I tap the YES card, then sit back and tuck my hands into the front pocket of my sweatshirt. The soft fur of my bunny passes over my skin before my fingers bump into the apple I forgot all about. It settles something in me. Just one more question, then I can go hide with my bunny and eat my apple.
Something pinches in his face for a second, there and gone like a flash. Was that… not the right answer?
Except he says, “Thank you, Matt,” and looks relieved again.
Maybe I’m not as good at reading him as I thought. Or maybe there aren’t right answers after all.
I’m not sure how I feel about that…
“Matt, some people go quiet after trauma because they need or want to. It helps them while they’re coping, to just shut that part of themselves down for a while.
It can be a wall between them and the world, until they feel ready to be more of a part of it again.
It’s a safety blanket. It’s something they can control, that no one can take from them or decide for them.
They know that they can speak, if they want to, and choose not to.
“Then there are people who can’t control when they speak.
Some have their ability to speak come and go, which is often something called selective mutism, though there are nuances to that diagnosis that we would need to explore later if we end up going that route.
Other people can’t talk at all, in any situation.
The mutism is constant. In both of these cases, it’s not that they choose not to speak, it’s that they can’t.
There are a few reasons why this happens, some physical, some mental, but the most important distinction is that it isn’t their choice.
It has been taken away from them. No matter how badly they want to, no matter how hard they try, they cannot speak. ”
He pauses, just a beat, and I know what’s coming. I know what his question is. I don’t want him to ask it.
He looks at me, looks into me, so sincere and warm and kind, so much intensity in his eyes. It’s then that I start to actually believe that he wants to help me. I believe there aren’t right or wrong answers. I believe that I’m in control.
But everything inside of me, straight down to the air in my lungs, is frozen.
“Matt?”
Please don’t ask.
Please, please, please don’t ask.
“Do you want to speak?”
It’s such a simple question.
It’s not simple at all.
My body isn’t mine. My voice isn’t. They took it. Maybe even before I knew they had, before I lost the ability to form words, it had already been stolen. Maybe I just hadn’t realized it yet.
Maybe I’ve always been unreal, been other, been something that doesn’t belong. A citizen of a country my parents didn’t call home. Someone to be left behind on soil soaked in invisible blood.
Maybe my birthright is to be alone, to be disconnected, to be a stranger in my own world.
Maybe I was just fooling myself before, thinking I could ever be real.
Maybe it wasn’t Mica, wasn’t the abuse, wasn’t the traffickers, wasn’t the foster parents, wasn’t the immigration agents who made me a ghost.
Maybe I’ve been a ghost all along.
He has these tools and questions and little laminated cards. He wants to help me. He has so many pretty words, all of these words I’ll never be able to say, words that stack up and up and up until I feel like I’m the one teetering on an edge.
Do I want to speak?
What is want, anyway?
What the fuck does it mean for someone like me to want?
I don’t know if I want to speak. I barely remember the time before. I don’t remember the days when words rolled so easily, don’t remember how I managed it, don’t remember what changed.
Do I want to speak?
I think so.
I think sometimes I’d give anything to say a single word. To say my real name. To just scream the word no until the world finally listens.
Do I want to speak?
Of course I do.
I want the words that clog my throat to go away, the words that stick and blur in my brain to make sense. I want to tell people things. I want to tell people so many things.
Do I want to speak?
Of course I don’t.
I want words to disappear altogether. I want to tell them nothing and pretend their version is real. Pretend that I am real.
Do I want to speak?
I want to remember what my voice sounds like.
I want to never have to hear myself again.
I want words to stop vaporizing, turning to nothing, impossible to get my fingers around, impossible to remember when they were solid, impossible to believe in.
I want to stop feeling like a ghost, stuck behind a veil, unable to communicate.
I want to be a ghost for real.
I’m so tired of pretending I’m alive. Pretending I’m real.
Do I want to speak?
Do I want to-
Do I want-
Do I -
Do - do - do I-
I can’t breathe.
I can’t think.
I can’t want.
Do I want to speak?
It doesn’t fucking matter. None of it matters.
The world closes in on me, heavy and thick and wrong, like it knows exactly that. Like it knows everything.
Maybe it can just tell my story for me. A eulogy.
I don’t think I want to do it myself.