Language Learning Triggered This Tweety's Trauma

(I fucking love alliterations)

Yeah yeah, I know this article is published on Valentine’s day and it’s not exactly lovey-dovey stuff… I promise I’ll be working on an article with my partner soon, but he wants to practice his drawing first, and I need to think about what exactly we will write about. In short: it’ll probably happen whenever Satan chooses to wax his own anus hairs. And we all know how much he loves those (?).

I was supposed to share an excerpt from my life guide this week, but I’ve noticed that it’s just not possible to share something decent every two weeks, without giving all the good stuff away for free. I guess I’m a business woman after all!

So from now on, my plan is to stick to one excerpt and one podcast per month, and the other weeks will be for my usual floopy writing. I know some fellow floopers here will be happy with that, and the non-floopers will have to practice their patience a little. Sorry sorry sorry (Belgian apologizing).

Anyway, the language learning, trauma thing. As some of you know by now, I travelled the world quite a bit in the past, and now I’m living in Uruguay.

This move was very different though. Before I moved here, I lived in countries like Australia, England and Malta. Guess what they all have in common? A ridiculously easy to learn language: English.

Oh… English, how I miss thee. My precious, utterly unpronounceable companion (example: uncomfortable - uncgofuckyourselfl). I usually don’t use emojis in my articles but I’ll make an exception here to Millennially express my feelings: 😭

I arrived in Uruguay with maybe 5 Spanish words in my backpocket, and two ridonculous ideas:

1. “I’m sure I’ll get by with English, it’s a world language after all”. A lot of people here don’t give a flying fuck about English, as is their right because it’s not their language after all.

2. “I’m good with languages, I already speak two languages fluently and I did well with French and German in high school too so I’ll pick it up quickly enough”. HAHAHAHAAAAH oh fuck no. Fuck my stupid little ass no. I am good with languages, but Spanish is the one language to fuck them all. Even the basics are hard: there are two words for to be. I mean, what? I have to worry about how to use a verb so basic it would order a Pumpkin spice latte? And let’s not even talk about subjuntivo.

To be fair, I also knew that in Malta, where I didn’t actually NEED to learn Spanish, it would be incredibly hard to get my brain to shut the hell up and study. So I did what any masochistic somewhat self-aware ADHDer would do: I jumped into it by studying the language here.

So here’s the problem, when you are:

1. Getting your visa and other paperwork sorted in spite of the crazy-making Uruguayan bureaucracy,

2. Growing your new business (read: working your tits off for no pay),

3. Moving from temporary accommodation to temporary accommodation because random shit happens when you move abroad,

4. Building a social network,

5. Navigating a new relationship as an anxiously attached person, and

6. Battling a capricious ADHD brain every day…

WHILE trying to learn a difficult language, it can get a bit too much. And it doesn’t help that people, when you ask them to slow down when they talk, think that making incredibly awkward eye contact and speaking louder is what you need instead.

All of that to say that I unfortunately still struggle with the language sometimes, and so I need to ask people for help to do important things like going to doctors, getting paperwork sorted etc. etc.

Now what does that have to do with trauma? Well, growing up, my voice didn’t seem to matter. I am the eldest of three kids. My mom never really liked me because I have a strong personality and I’m anything but a girly girl. Also, I suspect her to have been ‘rough’ with me as a baby thanks to postnatal depression and severe anxiety, which meant that I was more attached to my dad because he somehow felt the most safe out of the two of them.

My mom (definitely ADHD-inattentive type) was working part time, doing most of the household chores and looking after the three of us: two mostly hyperactive-combined ADHD kids and one inattentive type. And my dad (definitely AuDHD) usually spent time in his study, and if he wasn’t doing that, he was ‘disciplining’ us.

Not understanding something at school, giving my opinion, asking for an explanation when I broke another rule I didn’t know we had in the first place, having childish wants and needs, was ‘stupid’ and ‘disrespectful’ and therefore warranted horrible words, guilting, slapping. Which made for a fuck ton of anxiety whenever we went out as a family, because everything I did was apparently rude and disrespectful behavior which should be obliterated.

Oh and if there was anything that my siblings did wrong? Obviously also my fault because I was the eldest (?) so again, horrible words, guilting, slapping. It felt like no one ever believed me, or even cared, and that my siblings, their wants and needs, mattered more than I did.

Fast forward to arriving to Uruguay, two years ago. Because I couldn’t do anything myself and had to rely on other people who were helping me out by literally talking FOR me, I subconsciously was catapulted back to my childhood.

It helped me remember things from the past, especially how it felt growing up with my family.

I felt powerless.

I felt like I didn’t belong.

I felt like my voice didn’t matter.

I felt like I always did everything wrong.

I think I needed to be here, to experience this. And to work through the trauma, which I now realize I only worked through cognitively, rather than emotionally.

I am now learning that I won’t be shamed or guilted for asking for something I want or need.

I am learning that I can make mistakes and that doesn’t make me a stupid or bad person.

I am learning that I can be loved, for who I am.

And that feels great (heart emoji).

My face when people awkwardly stare into my eyes instead of speaking more slowly in Spanish

PS: I can’t get paid via Substack for the work that I do because of where I live, so you can become a paid subscriber or… buy me a coffee via my Buy Me A Coffee profile. Thank you for your support!