Abstract
This chapter explores how multilingualism can be instrumental in silencing and disempowerment, but conversely also in empowerment and resilience. The multilingualism of the writer, a native speaker of Turkish and German, became a potential liability when warped and distorted excerpts from her English diary were used in a custody dispute, in an example of “custody stalking” or “paper abuse.” However, the writer's multilingualism was also influential in her ability to withstand the trauma recorded in the diary, and helped her recovery from trauma, as outlined by Herman, through providing her with the means to verbalize her experience, illustrating the conception of Cook and Dewaele of the later-learned language as a tool that liberates and empowers multilinguals, and the theory of Costa and Dewaele that multilinguals' extended vocabulary aids their recovery by helping them to articulate their trauma.
TopThe Role Of The Diary In Court
With one Turkish and one German parent, I grew up with both languages, and had an edge when I began to learn English at the age of eleven. By my mid-twenties, when I started a PhD program in English Literature in Ankara, I had already grown used to keeping a diary in English, with occasional elements of German. Processing emotions and relationships in the language of the literary texts I analyzed in a professional context gave me the opportunity to take a step back from the Turkish setting in which all my relationship dynamics played out, and to gain some outside perspective. The diary was my outlet in which I could sort out thoughts and emotions about personal issues, to curse, complain, and express hope and fear.
Processing relationships and feelings in the diary became especially necessary during late 2011 and early 2012: the last months of my second marriage, when I was pregnant with my third child. My second was just over a year older and my son, from my first marriage, was twelve years old. I was trying to make it through a winter when had to record in the diary more and more instances of emotional abuse. Before long, it had escalated into the physical. It was in June 2012, mere weeks after giving birth, when threats regarding the children began, that my fear of staying overrode my fear of leaving the marriage. I took my children and fled, managed to keep our address secret for a few months, and filed for custody in the family court in Ankara.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Resilience: The ability to recover from difficult or challenging life events.
Trauma: An emotional response to a terrible event or series of events, like an accident, a natural disaster, or a period of abuse.
Psychological Violence/Emotional Abuse: Acts or behaviors which cause psychological harm, such as insults, belittling, constant humiliation, intimidation (e.g., destroying things), and threats of harm.
Manipulation: The control, exploitation, or similar influencing of someone to one’s own advantage.
Batterer: Someone who commits acts of physical or psychological violence against present or past intimate partners.
Empowerment: A person’s process of (re)gaining control over their own life.
Custody: The legal right and duty to make decisions about the child and to live with, provide, and care for the child. In cases of divorce, while joint custody of the child is common in most Western countries, sole custody being given to one parent is the norm in Turkey.
Gaslighting: To manipulate someone into questioning their own sanity.