When Silence Feels Safer Than Speaking
Most days at work, I feel like I’m holding myself back. It’s not that I don’t have thoughts, ideas, or questions … it’s that expressing them feels like stepping into a battlefield. In conversations, I contain my energy, bottling up what I really want to say. I avoid word battles, circular arguments, and tit-for-tat exchanges with people who thrive on control or conflict. It’s not worth the drain, but the silence costs me too. Each time I mask my true reactions, a little more of my energy gets chipped away.
It doesn’t stop at just the physical aspects of my job either. Even in the virtual spaces of my job, I feel the weight of masking. I hold back questions because asking them might invite criticism or condescension. I withhold clarity I need to do my work because the cost of being misunderstood, or made to feel inadequate, feels heavier than the cost of staying quiet.
The result? Exhaustion. Masking in both physical and digital spaces leaves me fatigued before the day even ends. It’s not just the work itself; it’s the invisible labor of containing myself. But here’s the thing: I remind myself that my silence is not weakness. It’s strategy. It’s me conserving energy in an environment that doesn’t always feel safe. Still, I also know survival isn’t the same as living fully either.
So, I try to give myself permission to unmask in small ways:
- Writing my questions down, even if I don’t send them.
- Taking five quiet minutes between meetings just to breathe.
- Releasing the tension through prayer, journaling, or even just a whispered mantra: “My spirit is untouchable. No one can take what God has given me.”
- Finding safe people outside of work, although rare, where I can express myself without fear of backlash.
Masking may still be part of my reality, but I’m learning to see it as armor I put on for certain situations – not the skin I have to live in all the time. At the end of the day, my worth isn’t measured by how well I blend in, but by how faithfully I protect the core of who I am.
My Voice Unchained 