The Fear of Being Seen
A comic about an existential cat.
I grow up as an only child and fall in love with solitude. Hours, days, years of uninterrupted peace and fantasy in my own company, surrounded by books and plants and the television. I’m rarely bored.
I find that I am also prone to falling madly in love with people, places and the world. It disturbs my carefully built sense of peace and space. Years pass before I learn that I need both: deep sea diving into others’ stories and retreating into my own.
Conversations are care and silence is comfort. Too much of either makes me unwell.
I recognise the signs that I need to retreat: noises become too loud, I can no longer read other people’s expressions, their jokes seem bewildering and sharp. If I don’t pay attention to the signs and withdraw, I explode. Then, I implode. The latter is worse.
Implosion is a storm of self-directed guilt and rage at all the words and feelings I swallowed because I was afraid or unsure or wanted to keep the peace. It is the screaming that lies behind the polite mask, what dies beneath when I say “It’s alright, I understand you didn’t mean it,” to someone who did mean it; it being pushing against my boundaries because they saw I wouldn’t be able to form the words “Stop that right now.”
Being silent and retreating for too long has its own dangers. I forget I have a voice, or that it matters, or that it grows stronger when I trust myself to speak.
Going outside helps. I don't know why it does, but it always works.
A combination of getting dressed, moving my feet, looking up at the sky. Before I realize it, I begin to smile at dogs, trees, songs, memories, people and finally, at my own reflection.Recently I realised that compliments from strangers linger in the heart nearly as long as hurtful things I have been told/said to myself.
I practise giving compliments to people, and study the way people accept them: with awkwardness, grace, shyness and delight.
One day, I’ll give myself a compliment and believe it.
Comic below, with words from Audre Lorde’s essay on transforming silence into action (Please read the entire essay here.)
