Trauma & Art

Discovering your Self in language (Edited)

‘Discovering your Self in language is always an epiphany, even if finding the words to describe your inner reality can be an agonizing process. That is why I find Helen Keller’s account of how she was “born into language” so inspiring’ (From The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk, a psychiatrist whose work focuses on the interaction of attachment, neurobiology, and developmental aspects of trauma’s effects on people and is noted for his research in the area of post-traumatic stress since the 1970s).

Part of the process of this path I have been walking on for quite some time is finding and using my more authentic voice. I have recently been toying with the idea of creating audios as a necessary part of the visibility process and the right to expression. Another reason that I have been considering this is that I have not spoken English since 2011! I have been constantly writing in English, but I could say that the speaking aspect of self, if I may call it that, has felt silenced. So this longing has brought themes related to language and bilingualism to the foreground. As I consider all this, different layers of experience and thoughts rise to the surface and I wonder, for instance, how my voice is going to come across since I have been told that it does not carry… Through a brief search I have learnt that there are actually several factors that affect the volume of our voice. We are born with a different size larynx and vocal cords and some of us may have smaller lungs and so can’t generate as much airflow as people with deeper and louder voices. So, people with a bigger larynx and thicker vocal cords speak louder. Also, the depth and volume depends on testosterone levels and that is why men’s vocal cords grow longer and thicker.  Read more……………………….