I am at a conference in New Orleans, and one of the questions for discussion at a session I attended was, what cultural or family norm(s) do you need to release to survive?
My grandmother, Sofía, was a child bride who was taken from her family in Nicaragua at 14 and brought to Costa Rica. Her abuser claimed she was his daughter at the border in order to traffic her into Costa Rica, then married her there against her will. For years, he beat her as she had child after child of his. Abuela Sofía couldn’t speak up because for her to speak up was to risk her safety and that of her children. She was in a foreign country with no rights and no resources. Recognizing and advocating for her mental health needs was not an option, and the day she finally summoned the courage to take that risk, her abuser threw her and their children into the street, leaving them to survive without his support.
My mother, raised in the aftermath of my grandmother’s choice to speak up, migrated to the United States from Costa Rica years later. From my grandmother, my mother learned that speaking up for herself could lead to grave consequences, and being an undocumented and unwelcome immigrant in a foreign country where she did not speak English, she too avoided making many waves.
Most of my family who migrated to the United States followed suit. As they arrived, they carried silence with them into this country.
We did not discuss many things, mental health being a topic not up for discussion. Sure, if someone drank too much, they were labeled a “borracho” (drunk) or a “vago” (lazy person), but that was where the conversation ended, at a label: no discussion, no digging, no examination, no reflection.
So when I found myself in the throws of addiction, I continued the family tradition of silence. However, the silence was stifling, and I slowly lost my breath. I was suffocating. Silence may have worked as a tool for survival for my mother, grandmother, and the women before them, but it was killing me.
For years, I didn’t step outside of myself to examine my situation and realize that I was not in my mother’s shoes or my grandmother’s. I was born here in the United States. At the peak of my addiction, I had a job with access to medical benefits that I could use to help me treat my yearning for alcohol. No one was putting me in danger but me.
The longer I carried the weight of the cultural tradition of silence, the farther I distanced myself from help. Rapidly, I was starting to drown in the midst of my alcohol use until suddenly, in November 2020, I opened my mouth. I used my voice and stopped comparing what I needed to do to live to those before me.
I tapped into the power that my family’s silence had stifled for generations and asked for help.
I had to release the norm of silence to save my own life, and now, I’ll make it my mission to always speak openly about this journey because I know that silence can be deadly.
Upcoming Opportunities
If you need 1:1 support, schedule a consultation here.
Sign up for my upcoming free writing workshop! Coming July 8th!
The next free pop-up support meeting for educators is coming up on August 3rd.
