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A Voice Of My Own
abuse, I was immediately drawn to a photo of a lemur posted for The Creative Matrix weekly
digital collage challenge. As a child, the many ugly secrets I kept to myself left me emotionally
isolated from the people around me, but animals (wild and domestic) captivated me, and I turned
to them often for comfort.
As I was creating the collage, its meaning became clear to me. It represented one of the most
disturbing incidents of abuse I’d experienced. I was anxious to explore additional techniques to
help myself make an emotional connection to the reality of this and similar incidents. One of
The Creative Matrix members had been experimenting using pictures of her face in her collages.
The actual episode of abuse involved a mirror and my reflection. I thought including a childhood
picture of my face in the weave might prove helpful. It was unsettling, but the discomfort actually
triggered a desire to write something about the incident as I remembered it. I was ready to write
my own poem with my own legibly written words to accompany the digital collage.
Two words came to mind; Never Human. The poem describes an imaginary place of gentle
creatures; a place I might have gone when abuse was inescapable. The words “Never Human”
spoke of never choosing a human being as an imaginary safe connection. Humans were not in the
realm of gentle creatures.
With fiendish grin, you inhale the
reflection of my life spilling red onto little
feet that could not hope to outrun you.
Never human, the creature calls
me to the veil,
And I slip away following hope's frail
thread to that gentle being.
Behind the veil there is no pain.
Comforted,
I no longer see you
And won't remember.
continually struggled with the feeling that I had no right to consider the
incidents I'd experienced as a child “abuse.” That is the very sad nature of the
beast. An abusive environment completely distorts a child's thinking.
Two visualization techniques, though awfully unpleasant, were particularly
effective and enabled me to make the connection to the reality of my past.
- While discussing specific incidents of abuse, Dr. Kleinman asked me to
imagine that she was holding my dearly loved dog. This became rough.
She began to describe the same acts of abuse I'd experienced as though
they were being done to my pup. She didn't have to say very much
before I made her stop. I immediately felt sick and horrified. It did,
however, help me to understand and feel the extent of the cruelty that I'd
experienced.
- At home, while sitting quietly, I imagined I was listening to the news and
hearing a story being told about some other young girl experiencing the
details of the mirror incident. I could feel the disgust and anger for
someone else. Gradually, I substituted myself for the imaginary girl and
eventually was able for brief moments to make the shift of an emotional
connection to the horror of it all.
With the addition of these visualization techniques I continued to move forward.
Shortly after creating Never Human, I felt ready to write out a story with
specific detail about the same incident. Though I was uneasy, knowing I felt
comfortable using words torn from my childhood fairy tale books, I decided
that I would write the details of the incident using that technique. For this story,
rather than use free association, I went through the books intentionally looking
for words and phrases that told my story the way I would have written it.
The artist for the Illustrated Junior Library edition of Anderson's Fairy
Tales, Arthur Szyk, is a favorite of mine. As a child I was mesmerized by his
elegant and expressive style. The most frightening subjects were drawn with
such beautiful detail and colors, that to me, it made the evil nature of their
character that much more obvious. There is one amazing Szyk illustration for
Anderson's The Snow Queen that had always amazed, repulsed yet captivated
me (I hope to add a link to this illustration soon). It depicts three evil demons
flying up to the heavens with a mirror. This mirror, invented by the head demon,
is described as one that distorts everything; good and pretty things shrivel
away, while the reflections of anything evil are enhanced to show off the worst
of their characteristics.
As I explored my feelings about the incident I'd experienced involving a mirror,
this illustration became a powerful symbol I felt I wanted to use as part of a
traditional collage. I added a childhood picture of myself as the reflection in the
mirror, and pasted the pieces of torn words around this altered illustration. So
as not to infringe on the copyright of Arthur Szyk's incredible illustration, I have
typed the first sentences of this story and then included a photo of a small
section of my personal journal page that picks up and finishes this story with the
actual torn words.
Thereupon, with a dreadful howl he seized a frightened little girl, and in a
very rough manner dragged her by the neck to the great mirror.
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© 2006 Meg Fox
All rights reserved
This material may not be reproduced in
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