I speak because I can

It's taken a number of years to find a voice.  A number of years, a number of false starts, and incessant missions to hide behind any masks I could possibly find or create.

There are hundreds of blogs on mental health issues, eating disorders, recovery and so on - I often feel my story is not worth telling, it becomes trivial in the face of what some people go through...  but this is the mindset that allowed me to slip behind the mask and discount my voice in the first place, and kept me hiding as I slipped ever further.  The critical voice of my internal parent, keeping me quiet and driving me to self-destructive means to keep the outer intact.

I am learning to speak.  An odd thing to say, perhaps, for someone labelled as articulate.  I have borrowed a number of words and lines from other people - songs, poetry, writing, but it is time to find my own to add to them, time to say the things that have been kept locked away.

This sounds like a cliche to my critical ear.  I hate writing in cliches, I hate drama and excessive display of emotion, but the truth is that cliches become so because people recognise themselves in what they hear - they are a method of giving voice to something very personal in a way that leaves everyone understanding what is going on - surely this is the point of speaking?  To be heard and understood.
'Drama' and excessive emotion are a huge part of who I am right now.  To pretend otherwise and go back to being flippant or minimising is continuing a pattern that has never helped.

I speak because I can, and in a way that suits and expresses where I am.  I will learn not to make apologies for this.