Beneath The Bottle

Tag: self discovery

  • Complicit in Silence; The fear of being heard.

    Complicit in Silence; The fear of being heard.

    “Ring me,” they say. “Pick up the phone.”

    Those words scare me. No not scare. Scare is what a child feels about something that isn’t truly frightening, but is told to be.

    Those words make me feel physically sick with fear, right to the pit of my stomach. Fear. The most all consuming pain, the kind that stops me from even thinking about contacting someone, anyone.

    The thought of being a burden. The thought of someone having to spend time just listening to me. The thought of allowing anyone too close, close enough to see the mess that sits vaguely supervised in my head. I say vaguely supervised because I do try to keep myself checked, appropriate and sensible. My other fear is baring my soul, one so tormented and riddled with pain and desperation at times. Between the fear of asking for help and the fear of opening up too much, my brain has trapped me in a cycle of self loathing and fear of criticism for needing help, too much help.

    Years of not coping. The guilt of being too much. Resigned to a slow demise where my fear allows only small glimpses of the struggle that lives beyond the fragile orbit of control. And as I age, the need to be even less for others to deal with consumes me more.

    I cannot bother people. I cannot put myself onto others. They could be going through their own pain. To ask someone to help me fills me with unreasonable guilt that turns physical, anxiety and sickness at the thought that another human being would have to listen to me. I can’t. I won’t. It feels unfair.

    But silence is a trap. Silence keeps me complicit in alcohol. Silence keeps me complicit in hiding my voice about horrific things that were done to me, even when I downplay them to lessen the hurt. There is no self compassion. I reject the rhetoric of my parents, seen not heard, even being seen was dangerous.

    Someone told me a few weeks ago that a text was no good to her, she expects me to pick the phone up and speak. She didn’t say it to be cruel. She had good reason. She explained that hearing my voice means there’s no hiding. A voice can’t lie when the words “I’m ok” come out. She’d know if it was true or not. She knew me well enough, even from early interactions, and that filled me with fear. I don’t pick up the phone.

    Why. Why can’t I put into words how I’m feeling. There isn’t one reason, there are many.

    Childhood was never safe to express an opinion or show emotion. You listened and obeyed. There was no room to share feelings, no space for happiness or sadness.

    Childhood made me invalid. My opinions were invalid, and so were my needs. In eighteen years of living with my parents, nothing showed me I was a human being with normal emotions, feelings or desires. I was programmed to perform to their standards, their rules, their moral high ground. Fear ruled everything.

    It’s hard to describe the kind of control my parents had over me. It wasn’t even a matter of trying to object or question them. I didn’t dare. The consequences were unthinkable.

    One evening the phone rang. My mam’s hands were in dishwater, so she asked me to answer it.

    Hello.

    Oh how I hate that one word. Hello caused me pain, upset, fear. All I said was hello, but the voice on the other end wasn’t as happy. My dad. He told me that the way I said hello was wrong, not good enough.

    Some background is needed for clarity. My mam was from near London, and I was expected to speak in her accent, with no trace of the North East in my voice, even though we were born and raised here. That evening, when my dad returned home, he informed me that the way I’d answered the phone was unacceptable, that I needed to be taught a lesson.

    My mam and dad took me to my dad’s office. They locked me in the conference room with a phone, taking turns to ring me. Each time I had to pick up and say hello in the “right” accent. My skin crawled, my fear rose. I couldn’t hear my mistake. I couldn’t see what I’d done wrong, yet they were never satisfied.

    Even now, I avoid answering phone calls whenever possible. The memories resurface, unforgiving. Their need for control went beyond my understanding. Perhaps it was never about how I said hello, but about their need to keep me conformed to the rhythm of their expectations and practices. What child would ever step outside such strict boundaries once fear had been placed in all the right places?

    Perhaps my parents kept me complicit in silence. It’s another thing I have to work on if I’m to rejoin society as a functioning adult. Yet breaking those cast iron chains feels futile at times. Maybe remorse keeps them partly in place, but above all, it’s fear, fear etched into my DNA. Not just the fear of upsetting them, but the fear of betraying them, of exposing what they did wrong. It’s as if they branded me, and any sign of wavering allegiance would invite instant reproach.

    I often recall one night, early hours of the morning, when I was no older than eight. The moon sat boldly on the other side of my drawn curtains. The night was cool, the chill in my room sent shivers down my spine. As the light hung proudly in the sky, watching over the sleeping, I sat up in bed and edged the curtains open to watch the moon.

    Tears came easily. I had woken, probably from another nightmare. I cried silently, or thought I had, but my sobs must have been heard. My mam came in, her voice clipped with habit and discipline. She asked what was wrong, but her words were more about ending the noise than hearing the pain.

    I replied with a weak nothing. She left me. But my sobs continued.

    There was no comfort from the two people who lay only metres away. They weren’t parents who offered love freely. There were no hugs, no gestures of kindness or understanding. My sobs irritated them, and I was dragged into the harsh brightness of the sitting room. The bulb burned my eyes, my heart, my head. The power of that light stunned me as I stood, head bowed as I always did in her presence. If my head stayed bowed, maybe she’d see respect, maybe she’d see obedience.

    A room full of feet, that’s all I saw. Their harsh words didn’t seem to go in, but on some level they must have, because if they hadn’t, maybe I would have learned to break free from the silence that still keeps me from asking for help.

    Mere minutes passed before my mam decided I was wasting their time. Back in bed, I leaned against the window sill and watched the moon, the one thing that offered light in the darkness, not just the darkness in the room but the deep web of darkness that filled my heart.

    There wasn’t even a longing to be loved. Just a hope that I wouldn’t feel so sad.

    Fear still sits where my voice should be. It waits in the space between messages I never send and calls I never make. I tell myself it’s easier to stay silent, that no one needs to hear me, but I know that’s the same lesson they taught me long ago. Silence made me complicit once. I don’t want it to win again. Maybe one day I’ll find the courage to call without fear, to let my voice exist without permission. For now, I sit with the echo of that little girl who learned that speaking was dangerous, and I try to remind her that it isn’t anymore. To pick up the phone and say the words please help me feels harder than breathing.

  • When The Music Speaks

    When The Music Speaks

    Music… it makes my world go round.

    Silence scares me, and music fills that silence with something warm and poignant.

    It quiets the world just enough for me to breathe.

    Songs are powerful. They can unravel a person’s deepest thoughts in mere minutes. One of my favourite things is to ask someone what their favourite song is and just listen. You can learn so much from what you hear. The progression of a song tells a story, as though you’re walking beside them for a few minutes, sharing something deeply human.

    Music has always found me in the places words couldn’t reach. It soothes the noise inside my head or amplifies it until I finally hear what I’ve been trying to silence. Each song is a mirror, showing me where I am, who I am, and sometimes who I’m too afraid to be.

    It opens a door to a world where we don’t need to be alone. Through shared songs, we can communicate without barriers.

    Tonight I’ve been reflecting on the last few months. Next week, my eighteen month therapy comes to an end. I’ll write about that in more detail soon, but for now, I want to reflect through music. On the many places it has taken me. Because sometimes, when words fail, sound carries the message better than anything I could ever write.

    Music knows what to say when I can’t. Like this blog, it finds the spaces between my thoughts, the quiet, the ache, the pulse beneath what I never say out loud. It soothes, but it also stirs. Sometimes it feels like the only thing that truly understands the language of my emotions.

    During therapy, my playlist told my story before I could. It held up a mirror that didn’t lie. It echoed what I felt before I could name it. That’s why one song can make you cry and another can steady you. Some lyrics felt written for me, because in that moment, they were me.

    Therapy was never a straight line. Some days I climbed out of darkness; other days, I slid back down. But through every rise and fall, there was music. Always music. It reflected every phase of how I felt, the numbness, the anger, the heartbreak, the faint pulse of hope.

    From hundreds of songs, these are the ones that stayed. They became more than background noise; they became signposts of where I was when words couldn’t come. Some were loud and chaotic, others soft and steady. Healing doesn’t always roar. Sometimes it whispers, waiting for you to listen again.

    Uncomfortably Numb – Pink Floyd

    It began with numbness.

    The kind that feels heavy, as if your body is too much to carry. Therapy had started, but I was far from ready to feel. There’s a strange comfort in not feeling, it protects you, but it also isolates you. This song captured that perfectly. Existing but not living, breathing but detached. It wasn’t peace, it was absence. I was uncomfortable in stillness, desperate for something to move inside me, yet terrified of what it would mean when it did.

    Same Drugs – Chance The Rapper

    There’s a sadness that comes with watching everyone move forward while you stay frozen.

    It wasn’t about substances; it was about distance. People growing, healing, changing and me, still trying to catch up.

    I heard it and felt the ache of being left behind, of time passing without me. It’s a gentle song, but quietly devastating, like realising the world didn’t wait. It made me feel trapped in my own body, wishing someone could see me. A loss not just of others, but of the version of myself I hadn’t yet found.

    Glass House – MGK (feat. Naomi Wild)

    This one burned.

    It forced me to face the parts of myself I’d tried hardest to hide. The anger, guilt, and resentment I turned inward. I’ve never known how to be angry at anyone else; the rage always lands on me.

    Glass House shattered that mirror. It was messy, uncomfortable, but freeing. Sometimes anger isn’t destruction, it’s recognition.

    Sad Forever – Lauren Spencer Smith

    There were days when the sadness was so heavy it felt like breathing underwater.

    Sad Forever gave that feeling a voice. The trembling vocals, the raw honesty, it mirrored the exhaustion of never knowing if the pain will lift, or if it ever will.

    It reminded me that sadness isn’t weakness; it’s proof that I can still feel, even when I wish I couldn’t. Beneath the ache was a small flicker of hope. The belief that one day, maybe, it won’t hurt this much. It’s the moment in therapy when the tears come before the words do.

    Die Young – Chappell Roan

    This song hit me in the darkest place.

    For a long time, I believed I wouldn’t make it this far. Die Young reflected that. It’s haunting and beautiful, defiant and broken all at once.

    It was the song I played when I didn’t want to die but didn’t know how to live either. Even now, part of me still feels that pull, the whisper that it might be easier not to keep trying.

    But when I listen closely, I hear something else; the will to stay alive long enough to see what might change.

    Maybe living is rebellion. Maybe hope is hidden in the background of songs like this. Not loud, but waiting.

    When the music fades, I’m left with silence, but it no longer feels empty.

    These songs carried me through therapy. The numbness, the heartbreak, the anger, the exhaustion, and the fragile hope that followed.

    They were there for me when I didn’t know how to be there for myself.