Help me! I’m dying and I can’t speak up…

How did we lose our voices? I'm not talking about laryngitis here. I'm talking about the ability to speak our needs—not our wants, our needs. I suppose I define "needs" as those things that keep our lives healthy and balanced, as opposed to" wants", the things that are nice to have and I can live without.

Monday I was at physical therapy. They help me do my stretching exercises when I'm there because I cannot do them on my own yet. I do more harm to my body than healing at this point. I had a different aide on Monday and she had her hands full with two of us. There was a certain exercise that really, really hurt. I knew when she was helping me that my body was not okay with what she was doing, but I didn't say anything. I just ginned and bore it. Okay, I grimaced more than grinned.

All I needed to do was say something, but I didn't. And now I am paying for it big time. I went about 10 steps backwards in my recovery process.

The people at the clinic are wonderful people. They care and I know they care. I knew they cared from the first moment I walked in the door. They are doing everything they can to make my life better. I guess I'd say they are partners in recovering my health.

As a partner I fell flat on my face. They cannot know what is happening in my body. Only I can know. So I began wondering—how did I lose my voice?

"Voice" is a subject my daughter and I have visited many times in the last several years. Voice is the part of a person that allows them to "just say no". We have a voice from the day we are born; however, it usually isn't the kind of "voice" folks want to hear too much from.

When we are born our voice comes out in a variety of noises—such as crying or laughing. Baby voices are very honest, truthful and to the point. When our needs are met we laugh, and quite frankly there is nothing as special as a baby who laughs. One of my best memories from being a mom is when Meg laughed. She laughed with her whole spirit, her entire heart, with every minute part of herself. Her laugh started at her toes and rolled through her entire body. And anyone who heard her laugh, laughed with her. They say children are honest and I would say whoever "they" are, they are correct. A child laughs and the world laughs with them.

When our needs are not met as a child we cry. The longer our needs are not met, the louder we cry. This is the voice most folks don't want to hear too much of. The cry of a child is like the laugh of a child. It reaches right down within me and I respond. I want to make whatever it is better.

Some things are easy to make better. I can change the diaper or offer my breast or warm up the bottle. Other needs are not so easy to make better. When a baby has a tummy ache, I can hold him or her and rub his or her little back, but I can't make the pain go away. When teeth are coming in I can use ice to help with the pain, yet I cannot make the pain go away. When a child falls down and cuts their knees, I can clean them up, put on bandages, and yet I cannot make the pain go away.

When my daughter was a baby she had an immature digestive system, so each time she ate, she was in pain. The first three months of her life she not only cried, she screamed. She cried until she was too exhausted to cry anymore and then she would fall asleep for about 12 hours. I could rock her, hold her, sing to her, rub her tummy, and yet I could not make the pain go away. I could take her to doctor after doctor, try suggestion after suggestion, read book after book—and yet I could not make the pain go away.

Now, I'm not telling you all this because I want sympathy or because I want you to feel sorry for me. I am establishing my credibility, so to speak; supporting my thesis, if you will.

Some of the suggestions I collected while I was doing my best to stop my daughter's pain was along the lines of: There isn't anything wrong with her. Just put her in her crib and let her cry, and eventually she'll learn to stop getting attention by crying.

Huh? You want me to do what? I think in the old days they called this the Dr. Spock method. No…not Mr. Spock! Mr. Spock would just do a mind meld and come up with some miraculous solution to the problem! <LOL>

Perhaps this is one way we lose our voice. My mother and my aunt gave me that advice, among countless other mature adults who'd had and raised children. And quite frankly, neither my mother nor my aunt was anything except loving and caring parents to me. I learned to love from them, and that says a whole lot and needs no explanation.

When we are children someone has to teach us use our voice. Not have a voice, simply use it in a constructive manner.

And just as we can teach a child to use their voice, we can also teach a child to not use their voice.

I can give you many examples from my own childhood where I was taught not to use my voice, everything from—you're not hurt (I'm not?) to; stop being a cry baby (I am?) to; don't wear your feelings on your sleeve (What do I do with them?).

Our society is filled with wise old adages<snort>:

• Grin and bear it
  
• Put some steel in your spine
  
• Keep a stiff upper lip
  
• Never let them see you sweat
  
• I'll give you something to cry about
  
• Boys will be boys
  
• No pain, no gain
  
• Pain is weakness leaving the body (Thank you Reba for that one)
  

So here I am, almost 53 years old and I still can't say "This is hurting me more than helping me. What can we do differently?" I look at that and think it sounds so easy and straightforward. It isn't even impolite. It is a rather no-brainer request. If anyone else had come to me with this same scenario I would have asked them why they didn't ask the therapist to stop because they were in pain.

Thus the saying—physician heal thyself.

I don't have a very good voice because my parents taught me not to have a voice. Not intentionally and I sure don't have any blame to lie at their doorstep. They did what they knew to do, and I have to say this about my parents—when they learned better they did do better. And yes, that is a paraphrase from Maya Angelou 's "…when you knew better... you did better!"

Because I did not learn to have a voice, my daughter did not learn to have a voice. I am so proud that she has learned to have her voice and is teaching me and other people to find theirs.

We teach our children how to use their voice or not. As parents we teach our children how to use their voice with integrity—or not.

And from where I am standing, integrity always begins with self. First self, then other. I cannot give what I do not have. I cannot teach what I do not have.

So, here I sit recovering from an injury that did not get taken care of properly because I did not have a voice; because I have laryngitis of the spirit when it comes to health and balance in my own life. The really cool thing about being an adult is that we can choose what we want to keep from our childhood teachings. The cool thing about growing up is we can learn whatever we want to learn. Some things are easier to learn than others things, and yet we can learn. "…when [I] knew better…[I] did better!"