Babbling About When Silence Says Everything

#192: When the chat goes quiet, our brains get loud. We’ve all felt that sharp drop from constant conversation to three dots and nothing, and the stories that rush in to fill the gap. Today we examine what silence actually communicates, why it triggers so much anxiety, and how to turn those empty spaces into clear signals for boundaries, self-respect, and better relationships.

We start by reframing silence as a language: sometimes it’s bandwidth, sometimes discomfort, sometimes slow-fade misalignment. I share real moments from ER shifts and social burnout to show how overstimulation can make silence a form of recovery, not rejection. From there, we unpack how attachment styles—anxious, avoidant, secure—shape our interpretations and our reactions. You’ll hear why emotionally available people reduce guesswork with small clarifications, and how patterns (not one-off pauses) tell the truth about capacity and commitment.

Then we get practical. You’ll learn a simple check-in sequence to stop spirals, scripts to ask for clarity without overexplaining, and time-bound boundaries that return your power when responses stall. We talk about sourcing your own closure, giving grace without abandoning yourself, and trading wishful assumptions for honest reads of energy and consistency. The goal isn’t to fear silence, it’s to use it. If their energy feels distant, believe the distance. If your intuition says misaligned, trust it and move with peace.

If this resonated, tap follow, share it with someone who’s been overthinking the silence, and leave a quick review so more listeners can find conversations that protect their peace. Your support helps us keep unpacking the messy, human side of communication.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Naming The Weight Of Silence
• 1:05 Silence As Communication, Not Rejection
• 2:40 Overstimulation And The Need For Quiet
• 6:07 Stories We Tell To Soften Silence
• 9:46 Emotional Maturity And Clarity Cues
• 12:25 Attachment Styles And Triggers

Transcript

Johnna: 0:00

What is up, everyone? Welcome back to another episode of the Babbles Nonsense podcast. Today, I want to talk about something I feel like we've all experienced at one time or another. And it's that uncomfortable silence that happens when communication fades. You know, when someone's words used to fill your phone and now it's just quiet. But instead of overanalyzing that quiet, I want to unpack what silence actually means or says. Because whether it's in a relationship, friendships, or even at work, silence does have a meaning. And that's something I'm currently learning myself. All right, guys. So let's just jump into it. This is going to be a short and sweet episode today. It's just something I've kind of been thinking about. Um, because I used to think when someone went silent, like it was always a me thing and it bothered me. I think like I've mentioned on this podcast before, like just the whole quote unquote ignoring. Um, but sometimes silence doesn't mean someone's ignoring you. Sometimes it's just their way of either distancing themselves or their way of like communicating with you through silence. Um, because silence overall is a language that people don't realize they're speaking when they do it. And it's all about how we do it, right? That's with anything, any communication. Because silence can mean disinterest, discomfort, guilt, or sometimes it could just mean maybe emotional immaturity if someone doesn't know how to either have confrontation or like to not have confrontation, but to like communicate through confrontation. When someone stops showing up with effort or clarity, sometimes that's enough information for us, even though our minds can't wrap our head around it. And that's where everything is nuanced, right? That's where everyone, based on their childhood traumas and their past experiences, that's how everyone interprets everything when it comes to communication, even silence, because sometimes, like I said, maybe someone's being silent because either they're not interested in the conversation anymore, it's an uncomfortable conversation for them, or maybe they just lack the maturity to finish the conversation. But yet maybe with my childhood trauma, if someone goes silence, I'll automatically think, oh my gosh, what have I done? Why is someone ignoring me? When it may not be that at all. Um, we don't have to always take silence as rejection. That's typically what I do. I'll just go ahead and throw my name in the pot there. Um, we can take it as data. It tells us where someone's capacity ends and where our own boundaries should begin. And I think that's beautiful because that's something I'm trying to learn more to do. I'm actually trying to stay more silent myself because I'm always overexplaining. I'm always trying to, you know, fix situations where I think that I've upset someone instead of just owning who I am and who my what my personality is and just sometimes sitting with silence. And sometimes that even like like I hate ignoring people or leaving people on red, but here lately I've been trying to be better at it because sometimes I don't have something to say, or it's not even that I don't have something to say. It's like I've said everything I could say, like maybe I've said the same thing 20 times and someone's just not getting it. And so sometimes I just have to leave it on red, you know? But then sometimes, like, and this is just I'm talking more so communication via text because sometimes people DM me and my Instagram and stuff, and sometimes I'll see it like while I'm at the gym and completely forget to respond, and then I'll think about it a couple days later and I'll be like, oh my gosh. Um, but anyways, I wanted to kind of also briefly touch on like why I feel like sometimes we try to fill in the blanks when there's silence because I feel like we all do it. We write stories in our heads to make silence feel softer. Um, and that's something, you know, Min Yu and I have talked about previously on the podcast, especially when she's done life coaching with me. And she, you know, she was like, we all tell ourselves stories and we have to get out of our own heads. And sometimes, you know, I think it's that we're uncomfortable, especially in this day and age of just sitting in silence. Um, I remember when I used to work in the ER after a very tough shift, you know, working 13 hours and it's just been busy and balls to the wall. I remember like going home, like especially if I worked three 12s in a row to get them over with, like, and that's another thing we need to talk about when people are like, but you only work three days a week. Okay, let's that, yeah, that's a whole nother topic that I will touch on um when I do a healthcare podcast next. Um, but so anyways, going back to the example, like if I am sitting in the car on the way home from you know a 13-hour shift, sometimes most of the time it was 14 hours for me. That had nothing to do with work, that had everything to do with me, being paranoid about being late to anything. I was always to work early. Um, but I would be driving home and I would just be like over-stimulated, like overwhelmed just from as many, like as many people I had talked to in the shift, or maybe it was like a bad trauma or something. And I would just sit in silence all the way home. And like I said, if I did three 12s in a row, that next day, you couldn't find me talking to anyone. If someone tried to call my phone, I would literally hit end and I would message them and say, sorry, can't talk right now, even if I was just sitting on the couch, like watching TV, because I was just overstimulated. And sometimes I have to remind myself like sometimes, maybe when people are being silent, maybe they're just overstimulated. Maybe they have a, you know, work deadline, maybe they have 50 unread text messages on their phone. Maybe work is just bogging them down, slamming them. Maybe they just got in a fight with their parents or their significant other or a friend, and you're the last, you know, the straw that broke the camel's back. You know what I'm saying? But going back to like we all do it, we write stories in our heads to make silence feel softer. Like we tell ourselves maybe they're just busy, maybe they didn't see it, maybe they just need time, maybe, like that was all the things like we're in our heads just about like maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe. But the truth is, emotionally available people don't leave space for that kind of guessing. Like emotionally mature people, I feel like would clarify, communicate, and care enough not to let you wonder or to fill that space. Like, if there's silence between you and we're talking about, I guess, a significant other or a friend, and there's silence between y'all. I feel like if we know the person well enough and we feel safe and we feel confident in being able to speak about problems, I think that's when silence feels less scary. I think it's when maybe you're in a relationship and you're walking on eggshells or something like that, and then and someone goes silent, you're maybe wondering in your head, like, oh, are they fading away? Are they doing the slow ghost? Like, what's going on because you're not confident or feeling quote unquote, I guess, safe in that relationship, and your nervous system is dysregulated. On the flip side of that, you could just have a very anxious attachment style and nothing is wrong. And maybe you've been in previous relationships where you haven't healed that part of you. But I will say this it's not your current partner's position or job to make you have less of an anxious attachment style. Well, let me reword that. Yes, it is their job to help you through that anxious attachment style by giving you the security, reassurance, and stuff like that. That should calm the anxious attachment style down. However, if it's more like internalized and deep, like that deep-rooted childhood trauma where everything is affecting you and maybe you haven't healed from a previous relationship, then it is your ultimate job to work on that. But you also have to recognize it, right? We have to recognize when we're anxiously attached, avoidantly attached, or whatever it is. Um, we have to recognize that because if we don't recognize it, then we can't fix it because most of the times it's something within you that's triggering those past childhood emotions that's just coming out in adulthood, and they're gonna wax and wane. Like I I did a um test, not a test, a quiz on attachment styles, which you'll hear a little bit more about in next week's episode. Um, so I don't want to give too much away, but just did this quiz, and like I I didn't realize that you could have like a main attachment style and then you can have secondary attachment styles pending the relationship that you're in because we all, you know, we all can flip and flop. Like usually when people are talking about these attachment styles, it almost feels like this is your attachment style, you just gotta heal from it, move on. But we all have core wounds, and like I feel like there's probably been moments where you your parents were secure or your parents were, you know, avoiding you, or they caused some anxiety in you to, you know, that's how we form our attachment styles. And so I feel like like sometimes I'm anxiously attached, pending what partner I'm with, sometimes I'm securely attached, and then sometimes I'm an avoidant. Like sometimes I'm like, yeah, don't want to be around you right now. Um, but anyways, enough on that. I think me and Min Yu are going to try to do attachment style podcasts because I've just been getting into it lately, just trying to learn like more about myself and how you know I can grow as a human. And it's just very interesting. Um, anyways, moving on, I wanted to also touch on like a little bit of respecting yourself when it comes to the silence, because the moment you stop chasing answers and start accepting the silence as communication, you do start reclaiming your power and it gives you more self-respect and you start building that self-confidence. Um, you stop begging for explanations from people who already gave you one through their actions. So sometimes I think we as humans, we want closure, whether that be, you know, like I said, a platonic relationship, work relationship, romantic relationship, we're always seeking closure when sometimes we have to give ourselves closure by stop replaying everything in our head, stop fantasizing potential, you know, take everything as it was. Like if they said, you know, I'm walking out this door, take it as I'm walking out this door. Don't go, oh, well, what does that mean? Does that mean he's coming back in the door? You know, sometimes I think that we just try to make questions that really aren't there because our brain is trying to keep you safe from hurting. And so we're just trying to find a why when we may never find a why. And I think that sometimes, you know, like if someone does go silent or ghost you or, you know, not give you an answer for a breakup or why they're ending a friendship or why they fired you or whatever case in point may be, then I think that's sometimes where we have to start self-regulating. And that also helps you build a more secure attachment style when you can self-regulate and you don't push somebody away to regulate or you don't have to pull someone close to regulate. Um, and that's not me being bitter, that's just like becoming more emotionally intelligent, emotionally mature, whatever you want to put in that category. It's just saying, like, I'm not going to interpret silence as mystery anymore. I'm going to interpret it as misalignment. This wasn't meant for me. Here's my answer, and stop trying to find answers when there's none there. Or there may be answers there, but if the other person's not willing to give you those answers, then you can't make assumptions for them because you are not them and you didn't, you like we have not lived their experience in life. We have not grown up in their, you know, childhoods. So I always try to give people grace in that aspect. Like whenever someone, like, let's say I'm the silent one and I go silent, someone can guess all day long, well, she's ignoring because of this, or she went silent because of that, but no one truly knows but me. And like I said, we're only just making assumptions versus saying, you know what, it doesn't matter why they went silent, they went silent, and that is the answer. So we've got to stop trying me. When I say we, I'm saying me, trying to find the why behind things. Um, but yeah, if someone, if something feels off and no one's saying anything, I guess I'm just saying, let's not try to fill in those blanks with hope. Let's fill in those blanks with honesty. If their energy feels distance, believe the distance. If their silence feels like an answer, believe that too. Because peace comes when we stop trying to translate someone else's inconsistency and start listening to our own intuition. And that's something I'm really working on heavy here lately, um, especially like I've been going back to therapy. Um, and so just something I've really been focusing on, and I just kind of wanted to share it. But, anyways, I will end it there. So thank you all for babbling with me today. If this episode spoke to you, please share it with someone who's been overthinking silence too. And just remember for a final takeaway, people who care about you will always make sure you know it. Everyone else teaches you to stop overthinking yourself to people who don't deserve the explanation. But, anyways, guys, I hope that resonated. Until next time, bye.