The song, “Woman in Chains” by Tears for Fears comes to mind as I begin this post.
*****
She tells me he is irritable again. “Is it the medications?”, she asks. “Talk to him. You are the only one he will listen to.” She heaves a weighted sigh, filled with years of unspoken needs. It fills the room, and I feel my own breath catch, as if the smoke of her silent rage is suffocating us both. Someone open a window, or a door. Wait, she is asking me to do this.
How do I tell her? How do I show her, that there is a way out?
*****
She walks into my office. “Is there any medication for anxiety?”, she asks. I have seen her a few months before. At that time, her story unfolded, like a tightly wound ball of yarn, unraveling into piles of loose strings of emotion.
She returns again with her pile of loose strings. “I need to contain these strings into a ball again.” She explains her home life. Her husband considers her homemaker role an inferior one to his. “You don’t get up early like I do. You get to sleep in late.” What she hasn’t told him, that she only reveals in chaotic borders of yarn, is that he is gravely mistaken.
The minute she awakes, she wants to fall back asleep. Between her children’s needs, the cleaning of the large house, and the back yard, she does not sit, does not breathe, does not rest. Her mind and body are in constant motion, threads thrown in all directions. There is no time to wrap them up again, so she dreams of colored streamers strewn across a black space. She frantically runs after them to roll them back into themselves , but there are too many, too fast for her to keep up.
How do I help her facilitate this discussion with him? How does she unwrap herself from the ties that bind her?
*****
In a male-centric world that dominates religion and culture, the subservient female sleeps. But she cannot remain silent. Her menstrual blood colors the walls of temples and the hearts of men with her anger and frustration. . Her voice swallowed, her eyes downcast, her hands bound, her soul sleeping, her womb gives birth to future generations, as she silently prays to the goddess for The Change through her offspring
What perpetuates the slumber and keeps the awakening at bay, under the heavy mist of dreams unrealized?
The Change begins with her. She comes to me in shackles. We break the links, one chain length at a time, as I inhale more deeply, one breath at a time.
