Language therapy

Post - diagnose 1.

It’s been almost two weeks since I've been trying to understand it. It’s rather a snow globe now, sometimes there’s a small swirl inside the globe, taking the little white pieces away until they finally settle, until the next storm. 

There is desperation, I can’t say there isn’t. Like the white elephant of the alchemists that you shouldn’t think of if you want to create gold, it’s always at the back of my mind. Or like the sword of Damocles that’s hanging above me and cutting, every time I do something wrong. And what is wrong, anyway?

In a way I’m actually happy about my condition. Because my uterus and ovaries were removed after the cancer had already spread, it can happen anytime, anywhere. Now they found three more things of some millimetres that weren’t there before. 

These are indicators, like some sensitive plants in the forest, for example some types of ferns die if the pollution is high. Well, ferns don’t die, we are living in Ferndale Road! I do consider that a sign.

When my indicators grow, not warning me, as warning has some connection to pressure and compulsion, so they are signalling to me that I’m not in my ideal operational mode. If I were, I would be healthy.

But what is there to change still? I have turned my life around. I’m working for a better future and have already accomplished a lot. Everybody who knows my story is impressed with me.

What should I do now? What should I do differently in order to be healthy?

All my life I was afraid. In childhood, because that was the only way I knew life. Then when I was young, I was afraid of what people thought about me. Then when I became a Muslim, I was afraid to do something wrong. Then I was afraid of illness and death.

I’m sick and tired of being sick. And afraid. And worried. I want to experience pure joy. Without worries. Something I haven’t yet, maybe only for seconds.

I saw this picture of my photographer friend. She has this unique talent of capturing a whole atmosphere, a mood, the air, a feeling, or rather thousands of feelings that make a place or a person or a person in a place what they truly are. There was an old wall of indecipherable colour, a tree in front of it and the sky, that grey-blue-purple Budapest sky you can’t see anywhere else. It was calm and homey. And it was sad; a deep, transgenerational sadness, grief, sorrow came through that discoloured wall and that atmosphere. That was the air that I breathed for nearly 40 years. Polluted of all the terrible things happened over there. Of all the unuttered and unprocessed pain and trauma of the people who lived among those walls, in one of those beautifully ruined buildings. Of my ancestors who did everything to be accepted, changed their names, hid their identities sometimes even from themselves, but who were never really welcome.

This is the sadness I feel deep inside. When I’m at home, doing chores, working on autopilot. They talk to me about their sorrow. About hostility that’s constantly diminished. About small things that aren’t small. 

This is how I have always felt. Not belonging, not accepted, as if someone is angry with me. What if these are the unprocessed traumas of my ancestors? They couldn’t talk about it. They didn’t even know it would help. And whenever I was trying to express my sensitivity, some minor hurt, I always met with diminution. “It’s not a big deal, get over it! They surely didn’t mean it! Why do you have two ears, you hear with one, you let it out on the other!” All learned coping mechanisms how to survive hostility. The unexpressed pain of surviving something much bigger than this. The loss of loved ones, of stability, of everything you owned, the disrespect you were treated with - and then the long decades you didn’t speak about it. Because you were happy it was over. Because you didn’t want to cut the wounds open. Because there was no safe place where you could tell it. 

It is this, now. Things need to be told in order to have them processed, but the condition to do it is the unconditional positive approach. This is why I’m here. This is how I can heal these centuries-long pains. That I talk about it in a safe environment. In a new language that radiates respect for anyone you talk to and for yourself, too. Talking in a new language is a powerful therapy. The other day I was writing an email to my son’s school. It was about attendance, when he was ill for 3 days, they reminded me about how important it is to go to school (something I really don’t like here, if you are ill, stay in your bed and moan, as my father used to say. In Hungary they let you be off sick even for two weeks unbothered, but your word has no value: for a 1 day absence you need medical proof, which means you need to sit at the GP’s waiting room for 2 hours at the beginning and at the end of your illness.) So the first draft of the email was of an offended, angry Eastern European who didn’t feel they were finally at a civilised place where their word counts, on the contrary, who felt harassed and questioned whether their words are true. Then I changed the beginning, then the end, then the middle. As I was sculpting the text, removing the structures that sparked from a place of hurt and adding more and more formulas of respect and self respect, my understanding of the situation grew. The school was simply doing their job. They didn’t think I was lying about my child’s condition - those who require a paper signed and stamped by the doctor even for a small cough do. They didn’t think I’m an irresponsible mother who is putting her child’s academic advancement in danger - they simply mentioned the fact that most children who have higher attendance, have higher achievements. And most importantly, they didn’t think anything about me. They were simply doing their job. This is what I understood while composing the letter. This is the power of languages. They carry in themselves all the unuttered feelings a nation carries, all the subtle features of the interpersonal feelings and communication that are shaped by history itself.

This is the reason why we have been talking to each other in every different language with my sister ever since we were able to.

Respect is ground zero for building yourself up. You were taken out of the mouldy cellar, and now you have room to grow. But you don’t have to hurry. Take your time (an expression I could never find the Hungarian equivalent of).

This is the first step.