Silent No More
” Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. “
- Robert Frost
What happens when we actually don’t want to be silent? When we have plenty to say and lots of good reasons to say it, but we find ourselves unable to speak?
Maybe we try to raise our thoughts, feelings or issues of concern only to find we are shut down overtly through ridicule, threats, or hostility.
Maybe when we try to speak the other person shuts us down covertly, resorting to manipulation, tears, heavy, long-suffering sighs and maybe we find that our efforts to communicate turns the other person into the perfect portrait of a victim.
Maybe the other person deflects, offers rationalizations, justifications, excuses that dismiss or minimize our perception and experience. Maybe we find ourselves becoming the issue, the problem person, the bad guy or the bitch.
Maybe the other person abandons the conversation and/or us, when we dare to raise issues or communicate something that the other person doesn’t want to hear, face or address.
All of these are strategies, some conscious, some not, that derail conversations, re-position issues and shut conversation and people down. They are all forms of bullying that fall along a continuum from outright aggression, through to passive aggression. They all have a way of silencing us. We become victims and are held hostage to silence as a way of maintaining the relationship or defending against the fall out that arises when we try to communicate.
This is feedback.
If we find ourselves in relationships where it is unsafe or impossible for us to speak, we are in a no-win situation. Yes, we can seek out better ways to communicate and practice our communication skills. What we cannot do is gift another person with insight or force them to engage. Eventually we must weigh up our silence and the reasons for it and ask ourselves the hard questions:
- Does this relationship allow me space to communicate?
- Is there an understanding of communication as a process, where there is room for people to communicate – perhaps imperfectly?
- Is there a consistent commitment to work through problems, miscommunication, emotional intensity and so forth, to reach understanding?
- Does my communication matter? Does it lead to enhanced understanding, resolution of issues and change?
- Do I feel better, or worse after trying to communicate?
- Is my silence the cost for maintaining this relationship?
- Am I victim of my own silence?
At the end of the day, relationship without the capacity for communication, is not much of a relationship at all.
I feel compelled to comment on this posting and your most recent, When Good People Go Silent. I am an eldercare specialist and caregiver coach. In my practice, relationships and family dynamics pose the greatest barriers to families working together. The feellings and ways of reacting to each other are so deep-seated that the stress of caring for an elderly parent brings these unresolved feelings to the surface.
I feel somewhat uneasy guiding my clients through the mire of family relationships, when in reality I am caught in the same patterns of behavior. On becoming a caregive to my mother, I had the naive notion that this would give my sister and I a common purpose. Instead I have experienced hostility, silence and latent anger rooted in childhood. I guess one may say I am experiencing “baptism by fire.”
I truly recognize the impact of unresolved issues and at times the necessity of letting go. Thank you so much for your insightful posts. I refer to them in my newsletters and use their wisdom in my coaching.
Karen
Hi Karen,
Thanks for your comment and for sharing a little bit about your work and personal story. I have heard it said that we experience the things that make us better helpers. I am not sure about that, but I can say direct experience builds empathy and compassion!
Thank you also for your kind words about my writing and for sharing it!
Take care,
Fiona
“At the end of the day, relationship without the capacity for communication, is not much of a relationship at all.”
I tend to hover over things, viewing tidbits that are richer in the mix than others, thus I have quoted what I think is the key and essential observation in the whole article.
I prefer hostile communication from people in my existence rather than none at all and the quoted sentence defines a pseudo relationship. Communication failures leading to misunderstanding, misjudgments and more were and are the cause of most marriage failures.
At the risk of being judged as impulsive, a kiss on the forehead and a hug to you Fiona for the word use in the quoted line…there are people who do not have the “CAPACITY” to communicate clearly, and others who do not for one reason or another wish to communicate at all in preserving relationships.
Always Edward