Babbling About The Weight Of The Unsaid

#196: What if the peace you’re protecting is actually performance? We go straight at the cost of staying quiet—how it starts in childhood, mutates into hyper-independence, and shows up as “I’m fine” until it explodes. Along the way, we unpack why so many of us can hold firm at work yet struggle to speak up in the relationships that matter most, and we offer compassionate ways to trade avoidance for clarity without lighting everything on fire.

We break down the moment before a hard conversation—racing heart, tense shoulders, runaway scenarios—and show how silence fuels resentment and self-doubt. You’ll hear candid stories about naming hurt with family, practicing tone and timing, and redefining confrontation as a bid for understanding rather than a guaranteed fight. We talk about the illusions we protect by staying quiet, the fear of finding out who someone truly is, and the hard truth that if honesty ends a bond, it was running on borrowed time.

You’ll leave with practical scripts and mindset tools: start in safe spaces, use simple “When X, I felt Y, I need Z” language, slow your pace, and allow time for repair. We also dig into the overthinker’s loop—how missing information breeds stories—and offer a grounding line to stop narrative spirals. If your voice has been on mute, this is your gentle push to choose discomfort now over distress later, to speak honestly even when your hands shake, and to trust that what’s meant for you won’t require you to be less than yourself.

If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend who’s holding something in, and leave a quick review to help more listeners find us. What is one sentence you’re ready to say today?

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Chapters

• 0:00 Why Silence Isn’t Safe
• 2:30 Childhood Roots Of Staying Quiet
• 5:10 Strong At Work, Silent At Home
• 8:45 Redefining Confrontation And Fear
• 13:20 Silence Sends The Wrong Message
• 17:45 The Hidden Weight Of Suppression
• 21:20 Illusions, Loss, And Hard Truths

Transcript

Johnna : 0:00

All right, guys, welcome back to another episode of the Babble's Nonsense podcast. On today's episode, I want to talk about the conversations that never happen, the words that we hold back, the truths we bury because we think silence is safer. Sometimes we convince ourselves that not saying anything will protect us, protect the friendship, the relationship, or the peace. But silence doesn't dissolve tension. It just buries it. And what's buried doesn't disappear. It only festers. I've learned that silence has a cost. It just takes time to collect. And when it does, it collects interest in resentment, exhaustion, and self-doubt. So today I want to unpack what the unsaid really does to us emotionally, mentally, and relationally, and how to start speaking again when your voice has been quiet for too long. This has just been on my mind lately. Um, where I know I know it's difficult to think, but sometimes I stay silent a lot in my friendships and relationships and like and that's platonic romantic family, whatever. Um, I learned that as a child to just be quiet. Um, I mentioned, you know, just to to give you a brief update if you haven't listened to past episodes, where I kind of lived in a very traumatic childhood where, you know, my sister was in trouble a lot and she was constantly needing attention. So I just thought the best thing for me to do and the best thing for my family was for me to just be quiet and never really bother my parents and just try to deal with situations myself, um, which is why I think I've built this hyper-independence as an adult where I just am like, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine until I explode. I've done this consistently throughout my adulthood where I keep saying everything's fine. I just keep, you know, not saying anything, and then until it gets to the point where, you know, you've just had enough and then you explode and everyone's like, wait, why are you upset? I don't, I didn't, I didn't realize you were so upset. So I've tried over the years, you know, especially learning this childhood trauma triggers all the things. I've tried learning how to communicate that better. I'm not perfect at it by any means. I think I'm getting a little bit better. Um, now I'll say in my professional life, I have no issues with this at all. Something I've never understood. It's almost like I have two different personalities. Like in my professional life, I have no problem talking to someone, having confrontation, standing my ground on what my beliefs are morally, ethically, all the things in healthcare. But then when it comes to me personally, like sometimes I feel like I have a hard time standing up for what's morally right for me, ethically right for me. Not always. Like, there's there's obviously some things that are just easy to stand up for, but then it's like when things happen to me, it's like me personally. It's almost like I'm comfortable taking a back seat to my own feelings for somebody else's until I'm not anymore. And you just never know when that's gonna happen. You just never know when it's gonna be like, okay, I'm tired of this. Um, so that's why I kind of wanted to do this podcast because I'm sure other people feel this way at times too. And I've I've heard people, you know, especially in my professional life, where people are like, you're just not afraid of confrontation, and that's okay. And it's like, no, it's not that I'm afraid of conversate confrontation. I don't love it. I don't like being confrontational with anybody. Like I'm sitting there sweating profusely. My heart's beating 110 times a minute, you know, and I want to be able to say the right things and, you know, not hurt someone else's feelings while protecting my piece as well. But sometimes it doesn't always go that way. And that's something I'm trying to currently work on in therapy is standing up for myself a little bit more when I want something because I'm so bad about it, which I know it sounds kind of if you don't know me personally, you'd be like, never got that vibe. But, anyways. Um, so we're gonna kind of break this up into sections. In this section, like the first section, we're gonna talk about that discomfort of honesty. Because I feel like some people do struggle with again, I'll say this, like confrontation. It and I think it just has such a negative connotation on it, right? Like when you think confrontation, you're thinking automatic argument, we're we're gonna we're gonna disagree. But sometimes like confronting something doesn't have to be an argument as long as you have two people, you know, speaking to each other in a community way. I think that's just my personal opinion. But I feel like everyone has that moment, you know, before every hard conversation where you have this physical reaction. Like your body literally tenses up, your heart races, your mind starts running, worst case scenarios, and then you end up talking yourself out of it. Like you don't want to have that quote unquote confrontation because you start feeling all these negative emotions. And then you tell yourself, you know, it's not worth it. I don't want to make things awkward, I don't want to have this conversation and lose this person out of my life because they're really important to me. And so we end up staying quiet. But the problem with that is what you suppress doesn't go away. You just start having conversations in your head uh instead of in real life. You replay what you wish you would have said, you imagine how they would have reacted, you even start building resentment based on hypothetical versions of events that never actually happened. And it's wild to me how much emotional energy we spend managing imaginary outcomes just to avoid one real honest moment. And I think sometimes that silence does come from fear, and that's the fear of rejection, fear of conflict, fear of being misunderstood. But then on the other side of that, there's other times where it's just conditioning, especially for women that, and not to make this a man versus woman thing, but I do feel like for women, we're taught to be agreeable, to keep the peace, to make everyone else comfortable. Um, but peace that requires your silence really isn't peace at all. That's just performance. And I know that mean you has talked on this podcast several times, like to get out of the stories, get out of your head. But sometimes it's hard. If you don't have those conversations with the other person, you're just assuming what they're thinking. You're just assuming that you know how they're feeling about a situation. And if you have a good friend, a good partner, good family members, then you honestly won't lose them by speaking your truth if something is bothering you. For me personally, I want my friends, family's partner to come to me comfortably and to be like, hey, like we got to talk about this situation. Now, I'm not gonna say all the time it's gonna be a comfortable conversation, but I hope I'm grown and adult enough to be like, got it, I can self-reflect, I can try to change some things, especially if I care about someone and want them in my life. Like, life in general is about compromise, and we're not always gonna 100% have our ways. And I think that's where a lot of people, you know, get into trouble because we think what's my way or the highway, but it's really not. Like marriage, friendships, staying in, you know, a mother-daughter relationship, mother-father relationship is all about compromises. I know I just recently had a hard conversation with my aunt that's been building on me because again, I let things build until it comes out of nowhere and it seems like I'm just so agitated when really it's kind of been building. And I had this conversation where where I really I admire her so much and I look up to her so much. But sometimes when she speaks to me, it feels, you know, like she is speaking to me like from a like a superior way and like almost like I'm dumb and don't know what I'm talking about. And I know logically that's not her intention. And I was so afraid to tell her, like, hey, this is really hurting my feelings, knowing that she cares enough about me to be like, okay, well, I can work on that. And we had the conversation, and that's exactly the way it went. But it took me so long to say it because I was afraid, and I'll be the first to admit that. Um, so I'm trying, like, now that I'm kind of working on this particular situation in therapy, that's why I kind of wanted to talk about it on the podcast. I was like, I'm going to try my best in conversations to start saying how I feel in the best way that I can. Like, obviously, I know it's harder, like it's harder for someone who's very direct and blunt because it can come across as rude and uncaring. So I have to really start focusing on my tone. Like, as you can listen to this, I speak pretty fast in general, anyways. And when when I'm in a heightened sense or like if something's uncomfortable, I speak even faster, which can come across very harsh sometimes. So that's something I have to work on for me if I'm going to continue to try to have these communications with other people about like trying to respect their wishes, but also respect my boundaries and myself as well. But, anyways, moving on to the next section, we're going to talk about how that silence can change you. So when you silence yourself repeatedly, I do feel like you start shrinking yourself. Um, you stop sharing your opinions, you downplay your needs, and eventually you will stop trusting your own perception of things. And I can say this, this is what happened to me. Like sometimes, like I have a really good memory, and sometimes it's a blessing and a curse. But when I remember things, like after situations, and I'm like, no, no, no, I know what happened logically, but I'm letting this other person tell me what actually their perception of what happened, and then I start believing it because I don't trust myself enough to say, no, that actually didn't happen and you're incorrect or wrong. Um, so sometimes like you might start like in those situations, you might start thinking, maybe you're just overreacting. Maybe I should just let it go. But that maybe slowly becomes your entire personality because then you start saying it repeatedly. And the thing is, people start responding to that version of you, the quieter one, the one who lets things slide. So they keep doing things that hurt you because when you're quiet about it, that sends a message as well. Like I've done a whole podcast on how silence can send a message as well. It kind of sends this false narrative that you're okay with what is going on, even when you're not, because we teach people that our silence is compliance. And that's and that right there is the hidden weight. It's not just the words you never said to them, it's the voice you stopped using with yourself. When you start second guessing your instincts, you start over-accommodating to avoid tension. You convince yourself that being quote unquote low drama means being quiet, but that's not peace. That is suppression. And suppression always leaks out somewhere. And that some somewhere could be anxiety or irritability or burnout or emotional numbness because your body does remember everything that you don't say. And that's where like this episode would be great with me and you because that's on that subconscious level that we don't even recognize sometimes. It's like breathing. You're sitting here breathing while you're listening to this podcast, and you're not going, I just took a breath, I just took a breath. So the more repeated action that we take, our nervous system picks up on that, and then it just becomes second nature. And then you wake up 20 years down the line and you're like, why am I so angry? And then you can't even trace it back to the why or the where. Um, but let's be real. Let's talk about why we stay quiet. So honesty sounds simple, but it's very layered. We don't just avoid hard conversations because we're weak. We avoid them because we've been taught that honesty equals conflict. We've watched people weaponize transparency, we've seen relationships blow up from one hard truth. So now, a lot of the times we equate silence with safety. But silence isn't safety. It's honestly just delaying your reality. You're still going to feel what you feel. The only difference is no one else knows how you feel because you're staying silent about it. But here's something most people don't talk about. Sometimes we stay quiet not because we're afraid of losing the other person, but because we're afraid of seeing the truth about who they really are. We know deep down that if we speak up, we might finally get our answer and it might not be the one that we want. And so, yes, ultimately you may lose someone for speaking your truth, but then you have to ask yourself, were they ever really yours if they didn't like your truth to begin with? So I feel like that's why we choose silence because it preserves that illusion that we're wanting to hold on to. But we also have to remember that illusions are very heavy things to carry. And this kind of goes back to what I was talking about at the beginning, how sometimes, you know, when when it's a confrontational moment that has that negative connotation to it, because no one likes conflict. No one likes to be in a disagreement, but also like going through all this, like, do we really like staying silent and just eating it? And then you're having internal conflict. So you're honestly you're feeling the negative emotions either way, whether you stay silent or whether you speak up. And I and I've been there, like I've stayed silent in relationships where something was really bothering me that was happening because I was so afraid that I would lose the person. I ended up losing them anyways, because that silence kept eating at me. And then when you go back in your mind, you're like, well, if I would have just stayed quiet, we would still be together. Okay, well, let's talk about the reality of it. Would you be happy? Like, is it better to stay in a relationship where you're unhappy but stay silent, which is also making you unhappy, or is it better to speak your truth, end up losing someone, and letting the universe and God put you right where you were destined to be? I don't know. That's only for you to decide. I know what I'm deciding here forward, but that's for you to decide on in your own life. So then the next thing we have to talk about is the turning point when that silence stops working for you. Because eventually, always something breaks. Whether that is you're getting tired of it, you get tired of pretending you're okay, tired of holding your breath in every conversation, tired of editing yourself in real time. I feel like there's this moment that maybe it happens after a friendship falls apart or maybe after a relationship hits a wall where you finally do realize that your silence never protected you, it just prolonged that pain. And when you have that moment, as painful as that moment is, it does become your turning point. Because once you see what silence costs, you can't go back to pretending it's peace. You start choosing discomfort over repression. You start saying things like, hey, I didn't like how that felt, or this is hard for me to talk about, but I need to. And you realize that your voice doesn't have to be loud to be powerful, it just has to be honest. And I think that's where I'm getting to in my own life. I think that's where when something hurts my feelings, even if even if I know logically their intent was not to hurt my feelings, I think that I have to speak up about that. And I had a conversation with a friend today. Something happened, we were having a conversation, and I was like, hey, I just want you to know, like, I know your intent wasn't to hurt my feelings, but that really did hurt my feelings. And I I honestly felt good about it. I honestly felt good about telling her that. Um and the response was good. Like the response wasn't like, oh, you're just in your feelings or whatever. But also, if someone does that to you, that is number one, that is gaslighting. Um, and I personally, this is just my personal opinion. I feel like if people truly do care about you, then they're gonna care if they're hurting your feelings or not. And I'm not saying it has to be in that exact moment. Like when you're heightened, maybe during a conflict or confrontation, you know, somebody might be mad and that's fine. But if they can go away and come back and have some self-reflection and be like, okay, I've thought about what you said. Here's where I'll try to be do better, but I also need to let you know this is where you, you know, you're hurting me. I think that's healthy. I think that's called healthy boundaries, healthy communication, healthy conversation. Because you're not always 100% going to agree and it's not gonna happen in that moment 100% of the time. I know myself, like when me and my aunt have disagreements because she says something or whatever, we get off the phone and I'll go think about it. And I may text her, you know, 24 to 72 hours later and go, hey, I thought about that conversation we had. Here's where you were right, here's where I feel like I was right, and then that's the end of it. And we both learn and grow as human beings, and that's honestly all we can ask for. But I guess the last thing I'll say is that or the last section we need to talk about is finding your voice again. So if you've been quiet for a long time, speaking up can feel very foreign at first. You may tend to overexplain, you might shake, you might cry, you might be profusely sweating, um, you might speak very fast like I do. And that is really okay because that's called vul vulnerability, and vulnerability is very messy at times. It's not this thing that we see on the movie, in the movies or you know, watching a movie. You just have to remember that's Hollywood. But we have to start somewhere, and sometimes starting somewhere means starting small, speak truth in the spaces where you feel safest first. Maybe for you that could be journaling, or maybe it's with a friend who truly does listen and listens to understand and not listens to reply. Um get used to hearing yourself say the truth out loud again. And when you're ready, start using that voice in the moments that matter because the right people, the ones who love you with depth, will want to hear your truth, even when it's uncomfortable, even when if it, even if it's something about them that's making you feel a certain way. But just remember on the flip side of that, the wrong people, people will call it quote unquote too much. But your job isn't to shrink for the wrong audience, it's to stand in the truth of who you actually are and be that authentic you. Because I feel like that's where happiness truly comes from, is being authentically yourself, being authentic to your core, your morals, your you know, ethics, and just trying to be a better human every day. Even if you learn to do this well, like I'm not good at it. I'm just not. But even if you are the best communicator out there, that doesn't mean that you're not gonna have moments in your life where you have disagreements, confrontations, arguments. Um, I truly feel like everything is fixable with communication. But unfortunately, something I've also had to learn is that communication takes two people. And one person who may be a very good communicator has to also have someone who can communicate well. It's really difficult to have someone who communicates well and then someone who doesn't, because that's where a lot of conflicts come from. I'm not saying it can't happen. I just think that that's why we all need therapy. Um, but uh something I did hear, and then I'll end it, is that if you're an overthinker, which I 1000% am an overthinker, it will take people in your life to be um good communicators because when you're overthinking, that's when you're getting in those scenarios, which I'm trying to stop getting in scenarios in my head that I clearly am making up in my own head. And then, you know, you you have all these emotions out of scenarios you are making up. And I and I used to say, well, if someone won't give me clothes or someone won't tell me, then they can't get mad at the stories I do makeup. Well, that's not necessarily true. You could just end it there and be like, well, I don't I don't have an answer, you know. But yeah, anyways, I will end it there. So if something has been sitting heavy on your chest right now or something that may be unsaid, this is definitely your reminder that your peace depends on your honesty. Silence might feel like control, but it's really a slow erosion of self. You don't have to say it perfectly, you just have to say it honestly. And if the truth ends something, then let it. Because what's meant for you won't require you to mute mute yourself to keep it. Um, again, guys, whenever I say this stuff, it's because it's something I'm going through and it's something I'm trying to also work on myself. No one is perfect at any of this, it's just gentle reminders. Um, but, anyways, thank you for listening to me babble. If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who's been holding something in too. And just remember, sometimes healing isn't about finding the right words, it's about finding the courage to finally act them. All right, guys, until next time. Bye.