My Hidden Truth: A Raw And Honest Narrative Of Silence

This is my narrative about the weight of secrecy and silence.

On my way home from school, I saw a newspaper headline on a newsstand. As I walked by, a wave of discomfort and unease came over me—an instinctive reaction I couldn’t explain. Something felt deeply wrong, but I had no words for it then.

It wasn’t until 20 years later, sitting in a counselor’s office, that I finally understood why. Beneath that headline was a photo of my father and his two daughters.

So much for protective denial.

When I entered the apartment, my mother was waiting in the living room, holding several newspapers. Her expression was cold and unmoving until she waved all three newspapers in front of me with an angry glare. Then, with a sharp flick of her wrist, she slammed all three onto the table.

“This was your father.”

The words weren’t an explanation. They weren’t even a statement. They were scornful.

I sat down, staring at the headline without picking up a piece of paper. My mind went blank. The world around me all of a sudden stood still. Unspeakable terror held me like a cold sheet.  But my mother’s expression—rigid, unyielding—kept me hyper-aware.

Through years of experience, I had learned that any emotional reaction—even the slightest flinch—could provoke a storm of blame, shame, and humiliation. So I did what I had been conditioned to do: I froze, my body in complete stillness, suppressing every emotion, feeling, question, and instinct to react.

Minutes later, my mother turned and left, closing the door behind her.

Some Wounds are Never Spoken

Only then did I pick up the newspapers, my hands trembling as I read each article. Each word reinforced a thought and a feeling: I now bear the weight of the label: I am the child of a criminal. It felt like something within me shattered, unleashing an immense flood of shame. I began to feel hollow, stained, and inherently “bad“.

Desperate to erase the connection, I dug through an old photo album until I found the only photo I had of my father and me. I was three years old, sitting on his lap. He left us when I was four years old.

I placed the photo in an ashtray and watched the flames turn it to ash.

The Burden of Shame

And so, at fourteen years old, I came to a single, horrifying conclusion: my father’s crime would be my life sentence. Out of this raw and vulnerable place, I adopted the “cardinal sin” of my father. I ended up carrying around the unreconciled burden of grief deep inside.

The following day, I went to school as if nothing had happened. The newspapers had vanished, and no one spoke of IT again.

To this day, I flinch at the sound of newspapers hitting the surface.

Silence – The Illusion of Safety

At fourteen, there was no safe person, place, or time to speak the unspeakable. No one asked how I felt or seemed to notice or show any interest. But I wouldn’t have known how to form the words even if someone had. The shock, disbelief, and profound shame prevented me from sharing the sad story with anyone for many more years. I remained silent, the secret hidden in the shadow of my father’s offense.

And so, I carried the weight alone.

“The ordinary response to atrocities is

to banish them from the consciousness.

 Certain violations of the social compact are

too terrible to utter out loud:

this is the meaning of the word unspeakable.

Atrocities, however, refused to be buried.”

-Judith Herman (1997)

Remaining Invisible

For years, I questioned whether the crime had even happened. The silence surrounding it made it feel unreal, like a nightmare I had imagined. When I finally built up the courage—two decades later—to ask my mother where my father was buried, I was met with harsh reprimand. Even his name was forbidden.

Silence begets Silence

Finding Solace in Art

The only refuge I found was in art.

A five-minute walk from my mother’s apartment away stood one of the city’s most excellent fine art museums, filled with masterpieces that displayed beauty and something beyond pain. That is why one theme captivated me more than any other: Mother Mary gently holding the baby Jesus.

I didn’t have money to visit the museum throughout the weekdays, so I went on Sundays when admission was free. I would wander through its halls, losing myself in the paintings and sculptures that spoke of something bigger than suffering.

The Power of Art

In that quiet space, I continually found hope that the world contained more than blame and shame. Here I felt life could be more than what the past had taught me.

“Art enables us to find ourselves

and lose ourselves at the same time.”

– Thomas Merton

For me, art is a unique and powerful force that can profoundly touch our lives. Artistic expressions have the capacity to reveal a certain truth about ourselves. Art can offer insight and clarity while also providing an escape from the mundane and the uncomfortable.

Looking back, I see that, as a child, my passion for art and art-making helped me survive the hard times in my family.

My love for art allowed me to immerse myself in the world of imagination, wonder, and forget human-made atrocities for a moment or two.