HIRAETH

I was unaware that there was a word to describe this, but there is, Hiraeth It’s the feeling of homesickness and nostalgia that overwhelms me at times. The feeling pulls deeply, leaves me sad, seems to tug at memories and reveals small snapshots that can’t be made sense of. It’s confusing. It’s a feeling of displacement, not belonging, a yearning for another place.

It’s also believed that it could be a longing to be where your spirit lives. That place might not be a physical location, but nostalgic, not a place but a time, a memory. Or maybe it’s an imaginary place, a place visited in dreams and daydreams.

Whatever it is, it’s worth sitting with and trying to understand, there has to be some rationale for a pining heart. I believe it’s a longing of the soul, whether for an imaginary or real place or time, I don’t know but I do think it’s a lost soul because it’s such a deep pull.

Lost souls are restless, searching, hoping. Mine is one of them. So it’s no surprise that I experience intense feelings of nostalgia and longing. I’ve come to understand mine as a sense of being an observer, sitting alongside or above situations, looking on or down, uninvolved, detached. Sometimes it feels like slow motion, a lot of the time things seem so irrelevant and trivial.

Often I daydream, take myself elsewhere, fade away from a scene, get lost in imagination, think about things that embrace me. Perhaps that’s part of a creative mind, my mind is very busy, it doesn’t switch off, it inquires, searches, questions pose more questions and my mind searches through images for answers.

So there it is, Hiraeth, a strange sounding word to describe my feelings of homesickness and nostalgia.

COMMUNICATION

When I consider communication, it’s a lack of communication, in-particular, silent treatment, that’s of significance to me.

I can’t do silent treatment. At all. I’ll never deliver silent treatment and being on the receiving end of it impacts me greatly. It’s most definitely a strong trigger point and here’s why.

I’d been on the receiving end of the silent treatment game for years. It was so ingrained that I came to expect it. I knew that one false move and that was it, silent. For days. It wasn’t an act of love, quite the opposite, it was calculated control, passive aggressive.

The aim was to claim power over me, my feelings were irrelevant. I was told that my feelings were just feelings and not real, that I lived in a fantasy-land. Gas lighting.

The result was confusion, isolation, rejection, loneliness and at times, despair. It attacked my self-worth and self-esteem, left me questioning and doubting myself, ate away at my core. I experienced dissociation and displacement. Brain freeze. It affected my ability to think and process and make sense of the world around me.

Others saw it in me. They commented on it, on my face and demeanour, that I had retreated and my mind was often daydreaming elsewhere. Escaping. Still I said nothing. I was ‘fine’, conditioned to not speak the truth, keep the secret.

My own speech was affected, words were withheld, swallowed, creating a lump in my throat that was audible when I did try to speak. I wondered who would want to hear it anyway.

I carry these experiences with me, they are historical but they had a huge toll. I identify it, I know the cues when this is triggered in my new life and I deal with confrontation immediately, resole problems and drama. I ask for communication, use my words.

Don’t ignore me or disregard my feelings, show compassion, talk to me. Communicate.

Finally, I will never go to sleep silenced. Everyone deserves a peaceful sleep. Including me.