Semantic satiation

I have a plan.

CW: Emotional abuse, sexual assault.

Dear Writer,

In the Ted Lasso episode “Two Aces” (S1.6) there’s a reference to the phenomenon of semantic satiation; when you repeat a word so many times, it ceases to have meaning or even seem familiar anymore.

REBECCA: Jamie’s contract is owned by Manchester City, and they in turn loaned him to Richmond for the season.

TED: Oh. I get it.

REBECCA: They want Jamie back if you’re planning to bench him.

TED: I’m not planning on that. No. My plan is for my plan to work. But you know what they say about the best laid plans, right? Hmmm. I said ‘plan’ too many times. Word’s lost all its meaning now. Plan. Plan. Plan. Doesn’t matter. You tell Man City that this man has a plan. Plan. Plan. Plan.

I’ve experienced semantic satiation a number of times in my life, but my knowledge of it as a phenomenon went unnamed, an experience I would have in a moment but never consciously think about. When I saw that episode of Ted Lasso, though, it felt so satisfying, like a puzzle piece falling into place. Semantic satiation. Perfect.

We’re moving to Colorado.

I’ve been thinking about conscious and subconscious knowledge a lot lately, Because Therapy. I visualize it in terms of water; there’s below the surface and above the surface. I have a lot of knowledge (things that are true) and beliefs (things that may or may not be true, but I live my life as though they are true) that are under the surface, and part of my therapy process is putting out the fishing line, waiting for something to tug at it, and then pull it up painstakingly to the surface, trying not to lose it, although I often do. If I can get it to the surface, I can drag it out and look at it in the light of day. When it’s below the surface, as it gets closer, I can see it, get a sense of the shape, but the water distorts the light and the shape and the colors. I can’t get a good look, I can’t wrap my mind around what it really is, until it’s above the surface.

I will be leaving this house in a matter of weeks.

Naming semantic satiation brought that concept, which had been knocking around in my subconscious as an unexamined experience for years, above the surface. I didn’t have to fish for it or pull it up the way I do the Big Fishes, the ones weighted down by trauma and emotional issues. Someone else can pull a concept like semantic satiation up above the water and boom; suddenly knowledge I had that I didn’t know I had has a name and a place in my world. I understand it.

Soon, I’m going to turn my back on this house for the very last time. In just a few weeks, I will never again have to sit and watch movies in the living room where I was date raped by a friend I’d invited over for dinner. In just a few weeks, I will never again have to sleep in the bedroom where my husband oddly put his hand over my throat and squeezed, sending me flying out into a dissociated haze where I wondered casually if he was going to kill me.

We’ve been talking about making the move for a while, but now we have a solid plan, and we’re really going to do it. I’m excited about going to Colorado. I have no problem wrapping my mind around the realities of that, and I absolutely can’t wait.

But turning my back on this place, leaving it forever, doesn’t feel real. Plan or no plan, I can't really imagine it.

Plan.

Plan.

Plan.

My fear, of course, is that I will never leave, even after I leave. You know what I mean? That a place so marked by intense trauma will imprint itself on my psyche and go with me wherever I go. That I will still wake up in this bedroom even when I’m 1500 miles away. That I will still flash back to that living room couch when I’m on another couch in another living room in another state. Location-sourced flashbacks have been a daily reality for me for a long time; I don’t fear those flashbacks because I know they’ll happen. Now that leaving is a reality, I’m suddenly afraid, because leaving spawns hope, and with hope comes fear. What if I just take it all with me? What if I can never, ever really leave? It’s like waiting for blood test results to find out if I’m in the clear or not. Some of the trauma absolutely will stay with me; it would be naive to think otherwise. I will never be a person this didn’t happen to. But will I be a person who doesn’t have daily flashbacks?

Maybe.

I’ve pulled these experiences out of the water and examined them to death for years Because Therapy. I throw them back into the water each time, but they keep bobbing to the surface. Very soon, some of the buoys that keep them so close to the surface of the water will be cut. At that point, I’ll find out if they can sink into the inky depths at the bottom, always there, but maybe less of a daily pain in the fucking ass.

Someday in the next six to eight weeks, I’m going to get into my car and back out of this driveway for the very last time.

I can’t imagine it.

But I know I will do it.

Because, baby, I have a plan.

Plan.

Plan.

Plan.

Goddamnit.

Everything,

L