Bearing Witness - Who Did You Tell?

Asma Sherif Moneer

21 min

Knowledge

Description

When I was around 6 years old, I was on the playground and a boy was yelling at me to not play on the monkey bars. When I stood up to him and told him I could be on the monkey bars if I wanted, he punched me in my chest. Hard. I felt a snap and I couldn’t breathe. I felt dizzy. I hid under a platform on the playground and when a teacher came by and asked if I was okay and if the boy had punched me, I just sat there quietly, holding my chest, and shook my head no. I’d like to think she knew I was lying. But why didn’t I say anything? Why didn’t I say, “Hey, this kid hit me! Someone do something, and ouch - this HURTS!” He actually broke a rib near my sternum. There’s even a lump of calcified bone above my left boob where he hit me. I never told anyone - not even my parents. Gabor Mate recommends that when we uncover trauma, we ask, “Who did you tell?” More often than not, the answer is, “No one.” Why? Part of the reason why we hide these early traumas is shame, but also the belief it won’t make a difference, or that is might even make things worse…and myriad other reasons. People not witnessing what happened to us and empathetically validating our experience deepen the wound. Not telling someone and going through it alone deepens the wound. Peter Levine said, “Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness.” Bearing witness and being witnessed is what we talk about today. Here is a letter I wrote to my second grade teacher last week (but didn’t send): Dear second-grade teacher at the fancy private school I was at on scholarship, When you told me I had to buy a ticket to the event held *during school hours* … ...and that since my parents didn't give me money to buy the ticket (because we didn't have it)..

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