Silent All These Years

...sometimes I hear my voice

and it's been here

Silent all these years.

(from Silent All These Years, Tori Amos)

What if I can't speak? Sometimes I feel like he took my voice.

In EMDR I am asked to describe the images that I see "out of the train window". Most of the time, I can describe what I am seeing or feeling. There have been a few times, however, when I literally did not have a voice. I could not open my mouth. It was as if it was glued shut. There have been times in therapy when I would open my mouth to speak, and nothing would come out. On these occasions during EMDR, I felt that I could not even open my mouth. I felt desperately trapped within my own nightmare with no way of reaching out to the safe present.

I just wanted to ask for a note pad and a pen. I could have written for hours, I am sure. I wonder if that is allowed in EMDR, or is verbalizing part of the process? Remembering is, of course, the most difficult part for me. Second to that is verbalizing the memories. After all, he warned me not to tell...repeatedly...in so many different forms...with so many different threats. He took my voice away. I am still afraid to speak...paralyzed by the fear.