It takes courage to talk when you’re suffering in silence

There are so many reasons people suffer in silence, just as there are many reasons why they continue to.  Some are not believed or will not be believed.  Others are not listened to and have lost faith in the hope that someone will.  Sometimes people just don’t feel justified to burden others.  And there is a plethora of other factors.

But it’s no good for anyone to suffer in silence.  Most of us have.  There are so many who do or will understand.

Perhaps there’s an attempt made to open up and it just doesn’t work out.  Maybe several attempts are made, and nothing comes of the hope that someone would listen.  Then we have the situation where we do open up and it goes completely NOT as we expected it to.

At times we resolve to keep it to ourselves and to ‘get over it’.  But it doesn’t often work, and more so, a cycle of ‘coming back to it’ happens.  It’s why it doesn’t work to just say to someone, “Get over it.”  People don’t, unless they live in some denial-land that isn’t healthy for anyone.

We must talk.  We must take another risk to be understood.  We must continue to reach out.  And yet we must also counsel ourselves in how much courage it takes to open up, and especially how much energy it takes.

One of the biggest risks in opening up is it goes completely pear-shaped and unanticipated consequences and effects begin to take place.  If that happens, we need to be prepared to give it one more shot – with someone else.

We need to promise ourselves that we’ll keep going, we’ll keep going to the next conversation, especially when a good attempt is made to open up and we feel closed down, criticised, judged, condemned, misunderstood.  We need to say to ourselves, “There is someone out there who WANTS to listen... a moment of redemption awaiting me... someone who believes in me... a way forward.”

In all reality, there are thousands upon thousands of people waiting to be the sounding board, and there any number of people with your name on their heart.  And we simply must believe this.  It may be what keeps us from harm’s way.

Photo by Joshua Ness on Unsplash