silent understanding

I know I hold a double standard. I know that I expect people to be sensitive to a past that I won't share with them...that I wouldn't even consider allowing them to know the slightest details about... they say they would want to know. Trust me when I tell you just how untrue that is. There is a dark world out there. We watch the news and read terrible stories about people who have walked through horrific situations. Talk shows, books, and magazines all share details that make most shudder and sadly shake their heads, wondering how there are people in this world who could do such hurtful things to children, to spouses, to perfect strangers. However the very thing that makes those stories bearable is the disconnect between them. What is interesting is how different the story becomes when someone you love is a part of it. When you are a part of it. I listen as other people tell their stories, and God knows I haven't been through anything compared to some people... but they talk about their story, these horrific things as though they are talking about a movie they watched or a book they read. Stone faced, stone hearts, reconstructing a life that has been forever shaken by a past that won't disappear. New movies won't replace the words and the scenes that are forever etched in your mind. You fall asleep at night only to relive the same story told through different characters in different contexts in different nightmares.
Tonight I sat and listened to my sister, talking to my mom, telling a story of a friend from high school who was beaten by his father and step mom. I listened as she talked about him telling his story to her and my mom this afternoon and how they both were in tears. I listened to her shock and horror and her repeating over and over how confused she was that he wouldn't have said anything... that he didn't tell anyone. She understood that he was threatened... but still how could he have stayed silent all those years. They sat and talked and talked about how heart breaking it was and what she would have done if she had known.
It's weird when there is an unspoken understanding. It's crazy how the stories are different but so similar at the same time. Maybe its verbal abuse. Maybe its physical, maybe its emotional or sexual. The degree or severity varies and the situations are unique...but the unspoken understanding bleeds through and touches anyone who has been scarred by it. You can look in their eyes and know that they know and for a moment its beautiful because you don't feel so alone. But as quickly as that feeling comes it is replaced with brokenness. You often feel more broken for them than you ever could for yourself. You have lived with your own pain...you never get used to someone else's. You pray that the world will never understand. You pray that those you love will never get close enough to it to feel the chill that it leaves behind in its wake. You desperately want to protect those you love from the very thing that you were not. So the silence continues. The eye contact is lost and you go about your every day lives, putting as much distance between you and the pain that you can...trying to allow it to change you for the better...believing it has made you the person you are today...because believing anything else would be devastating.
There is no pity that is desired. I know very few who want the attention and pity that the world can offer. There really is no point I am even trying to make. I guess I am merely making an observation. I guess it seems that the pain in other people is the very thing that connects you to them. We want to have spot free lives that are easy to share and be a part of. I don't necessarily think that the silent understanding, the connection that is unspoken, needs to be anything other than unspoken. I guess I just find it interesting that no matter how hard we try or how fast we run from the past that seems to have totally screwed us up...how great the mask or how beautiful the picture we paint is...in a moment, in a story, you are transported back. No matter how many miles or bricks or road blocks you have put in place to keep it away... in a scent, in a word, in the eyes of a child you know is holding back more than anyone would assume...you return. And it's as real as the day, days, months, years it happened. You don't necessarily have to stay...but each time it makes it more difficult to deny its presence. Each time you are reminded that it's a part of you. The question then I guess is how to move forward without the intent to forget...because when you spend your life trying to forget it makes it that much more painful when you are brought back, and are forced to look it in the eyes...most likely not your own eyes... but in the silent understanding of those who have been torn apart by abuse. It's the club you never want to be a part of... and the one you are never asked if you want to join...