The Price Of Silence
- Carla Crivaro
- Apr 3
- 12 min read
Updated: Apr 7
I realised a few years ago, amongst a few other things that one of the biggest sources for me of my chronic anxiety was silence.
I tried sharing how I felt for it to be ‘rationalised’. Solutions would be found or there would be a very logical approach to it. I was told we didn’t need to go over the past because it wasn’t constructive. My fears, worries and concerns were being silenced because they were uncomfortable for others to listen to. They didn’t know how to not take the shares personally. They didn’t feel comfortable with my range of emotions - because they were so disconnected and fearful of their own. So because they couldn’t access and accept their full human experience, the discomfort of it was so strong that they had to control my emotional experience to feel safe.
When I started reading about trauma and how it was held in the body I intuitively knew that I needed to start standing up for myself. I needed to begin sharing how I felt without fear of judgment. So I started asking those around me to listen and witness my shares without trying to change them. To just give me a hug afterwards.
Doing this amongst other tools, I began to notice that the intrusive thoughts were disappearing I started to have a more grounded feeling in my body. A greater sense inside of security and safety. I worried less about things. I ruminated less about things. I responded to unexpected situations with less stress and panic and was able to feel more ‘in flow’.
As I built up this skill of sharing, holding myself and feeling confident in my shares I was doing it more and more from a place of self-responsibility. I could see what was mine and what was a trigger and be able to share from a more grounded place.
When I entered another relationship I noticed early on that when I would say ‘no’ to wanting to do something it was met with resistance. Phrases such as ‘If it were you asking me, I would do it.’
When I shared my emotional experience and fears around something it was met with ‘You are trying to control me and you have ruined our weekend.’ I worked really hard at choosing the right time to say things. I changed when I brought something up - we tried a specific relationship container for both of us to share how we felt. He would share unfiltered his own experience and the moment I, with words carefully chosen from my phone notes, would begin sharing it was met with anger often resulting in name calling and other unkind words heading my way.
Anytime I needed to begin sharing something I felt that there would be this vibration in the chest, not knowing how the response was going to be. There would be a point where my body would learn to shut down when he got upset.
Asking for anything became really difficult too. He saw every request as a demand. I used positive affirming statements saying how much I liked receiving oral sex and how it felt, which then resulted in him curled up in the foetal position on the sofa not talking to me because he felt not good enough.
I was trying to protect his emotional experience and his discomfort by ignoring mine.
Where did all of this take me? It wasn’t until recently when supporting a couple did I realise a pattern that they were displaying in their exchange was reflected in what had happened in that relationship. The pieces were coming together.
The female client was sharing how she would periodically go through a crisis. Her trauma would come up and she would go into a fog and something reasonably small and not so significant to a need or request would be the focus of importance for her.
As I watched them interact I noticed that every time she talked, he would correct what she was saying and how she was saying it. He was clearly uncomfortable with what she was saying. He was trying to control what she shared that triggered him or made him feel uncomfortable by using ‘compassionate communication’.
Let me pause here to explain for those of you who don’t know. There are different ideas and almost ‘scripts’ that can be used for us to communicate feelings and desires without blaming the other person. This way of expressing is an opportunity for both parties to feel heard (the person sharing) and for both parties to feel invited into conversation rather than attacked (the person listening).
What I noticed in the interaction that every time she shared from what sounded to me from a place of responsibility he would find a part of her share that could have been ‘better’ or ‘different’.
He was controlling her shares because they were too uncomfortable to hear.
In that moment I could see very clearly what was happening. Because it had happened to me. The man I had been in relationship had shut down my shares because I was demanding, too needy, or criticising. He told me it was my trauma that was the issue here that kept coming up and needing to be managed.
And here was this female client, being told exactly the same things but not with unkind words or shouting, but with ‘conscious communication’. The reason they were here was because of HER trauma. Her cyclical episodes.
I spoke to a few colleagues in the conscious communcation space and they shared that they too had seen this happen with non-violent communciation being used in 'violent' ways.
I understood what was happening - it had happened to me.
I would hold back what I was sharing in that relationship, minimise, test the water and quickly withdraw if the fire got too hot. Overtime, unresolved issues mounted. The anxiety built up in my nervous system. The pressure cooker of emotions was bubbling with intensity underneath my chest.
So a situation or something that would happen that wasn’t in the big scheme of things a ‘big deal’ would have so much focus. Because the unspoken words and shut down of other conversations had built up in my body to an extent that this new thing became unmanageable. The Gottmans talk about it and refer to the importance of ‘complaining’. I wrote an article talking about what the Gottmans found, here.
An example of how my nervous system struggled was I remember one situation when we were with his friends and we wanted to go home and he wanted to stay. He got angry and upset at me that I wouldn’t stay. I had a long drive the next day and hadn’t slept properly for days and was mindful of wanting to get enough sleep for the drive back. He was angry and upset, so much so that he walked off by himself to sit and sulk. I could feel that familiar vibration in the chest and my legs and arms were tingling. One of his friends made comment about ‘How well you’re dealing with him Carla’. They did not know that my body was in panic and I was desperate to get away. I felt trapped. I was with him and his friends and felt so unsafe.
The next day, coming out of the state of freeze and fawn I got anxiety.
So if you don’t know, I’m going to pause again here to explain about the nervous system and how it works.
When our nervous system perceives a threat it goes into a sympathetic nervous system response. What that means is your body prepares to run away or fight against the threat - you may have heard of fight/flight (anxiety). This can look like, avoiding conversations, withdrawing from them, or on the other side of that getting angry, defensive or having a go at the potential threat. In certain situations it can be an actual running away or physical fight response.
If our nervous system gets so overwhelmed and isn’t able to activate a fight/flight response it moves into what’s called a parasympathetic dorsal nervous system response which looks like freeze or fawn (depression). Freezing is a way that the body shuts itself down from the threat. In extreme cases this looks like the animal is playing dead. Humans in extreme situations can do this too. Often what will happen is the person goes quiet and looks distant. If this is you, you likely can’t think properly and you may feel like you are ‘out of your body’. A fawn response is when you try and appease the potential threat by saying and doing things that you hope will remove the threat. This can look like agreeing to things you don’t actually want to do. It’s why sexual violence against women is so high in relationships but goes unreported. Women are frightened by what might happen if they say ‘no’ so for their own safety allow the sex to happen.
All of these responses aren’t conscious as such, however, you can train the body to begin to do differently. I talk about this here in Stop Being Nice.
So with this information, what happens is the threat happens, the foot goes on the accelerator for fight or flight, the body gets overwhelmed and puts the brake on (freeze/fawn) while the accelerator is still on. Now anyone who drives a car knows that the moment you remove the brake the car jerks forward with all the power that had been held back my the brake being on.
And that’s what had happened to me. The following day coming out of the freeze/fawn response my body was vibrating as all the energy from having the break on came coursing through my body. I felt jittery and anxious. I started speaking up for myself which then caused conflict.
It’s quite a common response in women is to freeze or fawn and I’ve supported various women in finding their voice.
A female 1-1 client came to me unsure whether to be in her relationship or choose non-monogamy. She was married and had 2 children and felt it was a huge decision. I shared recently my own experience around staying silent and she offered to share her realisations after finally deciding to leave the relationship…
“My ex husband’s moods were unpredictable. I never knew whether I was going home to a warm welcome, stony silence or just being completely ignored. When I did challenge behaviour or need to talk about difficult things he would get frustrated and sometimes throw things. This made me fearful of talking to him, I felt like I was always walking on eggshells. It wasn’t until I left I realised how much stress I was holding in my body and how, for the last few years, I was always in fight, flight, freeze or fawn because I didn’t feel safe to be myself or speak my truth. Now we are separated it’s a bit easier as I don’t have to live with him but that residual fear is still there and I have to work through it every time we need to communicate.”
I invited a friend and colleague Frances Goodall who works with women with ME, Chronic Fatigue, Long Covid, Fibromyalgia, MS and lots of other chronic long-term health conditions. She finds a similar pattern.
“When people don’t speak up for themselves, it can very much impact their physical health. When emotions are held in and things aren’t communicated that need to be, it can impact on our system and not only our emotional health, but also our physical health, it can for instance be a big factor in causing fatigue, headaches, digestive issues and brain fog.
I personally had five years of chronic fatigue syndrome and had a massive peace-maker tendency. I didn’t want to speak my truth. I kept my feelings very much inside, especially anger (I had never really felt consciously angry before I started to heal) compromising my physical health. An underlying belief of ‘keep the peace at all costs, even to my physical health. It was only when I started to step out of that pattern, at times in an explosive way, that I started to heal.
I also see this pattern in many clients that I work with, for instance clients that are in relationships that are not speaking up for their needs. I see people with challenging childhoods that learnt that it wasn’t safe to express their feelings. I see clients that have been bullied at school or in the workplace, and haven’t had a safe space to work with their feelings and parts stirred around this.
In my personal experience, and also nearly 20 years of professional experience, with healing chronic symptoms, I see one of the prices of silence can be chronic symptoms. I suggest you surround yourself with people with whom it feels safe to speak your truth and your feelings, and if there is a backlog of unexpressed feelings and truths to seek somatic based coaching or therapy to work through what’s in your system in a safe and held space.”
And so part of my journey has been choosing my tribe - and in the future a relationship that gives my voice space. I now choose the people in my life that I can have difficult conversations with. A recent example was on a business retreat to Dubai organised by Elizabeth McQuillan at Flamingo Business.
Before the retreat I had some big feelings of ‘not good enough’ come up for me in meditation. The women that I would be travelling with where considerably further ahead in their businesses, in every sense - audience reach, financials, etc
On the Sunday when in Dubai when I walked into the room I noticed a discomfort. Due to years of bullying and the residue of ‘not being good enough’ lingering, I immediately jumped to the old story of ‘they are talking about me behind my back’.
So I had a choice - to hide how I felt and do the old pattern of bending over backwards to have them like me so I would feel chosen, and as a consequence, abandoning myself. Or leave the venue we were at. I chose a third option - vulnerability. Knowing how they received that would determine who THEY are. So I took the risk. I told them that I felt unsafe, that as I walked in the room had noticed a shift, maybe it was in my head and explained my past trauma or if there was something they wanted to say to me then I was ready to hear it.
It could have gone in different directions. They could have said ‘yes’ they were talking about me and we could have had a conversation around that, which would have felt uncomfortable but if they had things to share, it would have been important for them to share their truth as well. They could have laughed or made fun of me or put me down. What actually happened is they thanked me for sharing, hadn’t wanted me to feel that way and appreciated my vulnerability which actually later on that day gave a couple of other people ‘permission’ to share with me some things they had also been struggling with.
So vulnerable sharing can create deeper intimacy IF you are sharing to the right people in a responsible way - which looks like saying what happened, how ‘I’ felt and what story ‘I’ have created.
If people aren’t able to hold your shares, maybe they over correct HOW you are vulnerable, maybe they make your ‘trauma too much’, maybe they make it personal which shuts you down… whatever happens, if you don’t feel fully heard and you notice that your truth isn’t being received, it’s time to ponder if that’s a safe and supportive environment for you and one where you can grow.
Over time what happens is that when you lose your voice you disconnect from your authentic self. You stop trusting yourself. You begin not to trust others. If you can’t ask for what you want and if you can’t say what you don’t want, you shrink, dim yourself down and adapt to fit in.
You lose your ability to play, to have fun, to shine and to trust your decisions. You question yourself, you begin to feel you are both too much and not enough at the same time
You start to become vague with what you want and don’t want. When someone asks you if you want something you skirt around it instead of voicing it with a clear ‘no’. When your ‘no’ isn’t clear you get pushed around, people don’t understand where they stand with you. The resentment can build up inside yourself and you begin to avoid certain people and topics of conversation because you aren’t being met or listened to in them.
You start to feel small and your confidence can drop.
So I invite you now to ponder - where are you not speaking your truth and who to?
Is it their inability to hold it or your pattern of people-pleasing to make others feel more comfortable?
What would happen if you did connect to your truth and voiced it with confidence and assuredness? How differently would you show up in the world? Which people would stay? Which would go?
How would you feel about yourself?
And finally - what’s the price you pay for silence?
Carla Crivaro is a trauma-informed and certified Sex, Love & Relationship Coach, she works with men and women internationally to reach their goals in delicious sex, profound love and authentic relationships. Carla helps men and women understand themselves and each other, sexually and relationally, in and out of the bedroom. You can reach her at hello@carlacrivaro.com.
Other resources which are supportive around this topic are:
Comments