Lena is a beautiful, well-put together and well-spoken Hispanic woman. She begins her story as a child and her first memory of dancing with her favorite doll Patty followed by being physically abused by her grandmother. As she reflects on her life trying to put the pieces together so that she can better understand how she got to this point of recovery she opens up about her life. The abuse she endured at the hands of her grandmother eventually became more than she could handle. After many hits to the side of her head she lost a majority of her hearing and began to learn sign language, a certain comfort came over her in the silence. But it was the doll that Officer Patterson gave her at a very young age that she held on to, naming it “Patty” and never forgetting that if she ever needed him all she had to do was call 9-1-1 and he would come. By the time that her abuse had progressed to it’s climax Lena had created a collection of personalities that the audience gets to experience. Lena then finds herself standing at the base of the staircase looking down at her grandmother who was dead at her feet. Did she kill her? She didn’t remember what happened, but she found her voice finally, picked up the phone and called her only friend for help. (*Piece requires some Spanish and some basic sign language.)
DI/ Female- Breaking Voices
- (Lena, a five-year-old child stands before us. She is playing with a doll. She smiles as she makes the doll dance. She dances with her humming and laughing. Then in an instant something changes. Someone has come into the room that she fears. She tries to shield herself from a very dramatic blow to the head.) Please don’t hit me. Please. I was just playing with my doll. Do you want to play with her? She can dance to; do you want to see her dance? (Another hit comes. She drops the doll.) You hurt my doll. (She transitions into the present. To a woman in her mid twenties as she speaks to the audience.) I relive that moment often in my mind. Or at least I think that was the moment that my mind split, as my doctor calls it. When I went from one to many and never again to be alone. (Reflects in silence) I never thought I would miss silence. (Beat) Fighting the abuse from the outside turned into fighting the demons that lived inside, the people that only I could hear. (Smiles) I go to church a lot now and I listen to people talk about how they hear from God and God talks to them and so many people in the congregation don’t understand what that feels like. I don’t know that God has ever talked to me, but I have definitely heard voices, some of them nice and some of them not so nice. Some of them love me and want to help me and some (Beat) some take my hands and they control them, they control me. (Beat) Definitely not God but yes, I hear them, loud and clear. I don't know that I specifically have memories of my mother and father. My therapist says that I was too young when they walked out on me to have memories of them but that the memories that I've created in my mind are actually the stories that others have told me about them. Stories that are not altogether true. In my present state I remember my mother being beautiful.