The Fear Behind the Silence

God Never Asked Me to Be Silent

For years, I thought silence was strength.That staying quiet kept the peace.

But the truth is, silence can cost you your voice — sometimes your soul.

For most of my life, I have struggled to speak — to say what I really thought or felt.

It wasn’t until recently that I began to understand how deeply silence shaped me — how it hurt me, how it held me back — and how finding my voice would become part of my healing.

Losing My Voice

Five years ago, when I was in rehab, one of our counselors told our group of fifteen women that we were going to do role-playing exercises.

“Pair up with someone,” she said.

My roommate and I quickly agreed.We sat in the familiar circle of molded plastic chairs — the kind found in every rehab, classroom, or church basement across the world — and waited our turn.

My chest tightened.I hadn’t spoken in front of a group since giving my mother’s eulogy three years earlier, when I’d barely squeaked my way through.

My husband had to step out of the front pew and come stand beside me for moral — and almost physical — support.

I couldn’t talk in front of more than three people for most of my life, and sometimes I barely got through that.

I wasn’t born that way.

I was the shining lead in our kindergarten play and was often shushed by my parents or the nuns.

My voice began to disappear somewhere between eighth and ninth grade — when I left the small, safe cocoon of St. Joe’s, where I’d known the same thirty kids for nine years, and stepped into a large public high school where everyone already seemed to belong except me.

Somewhere in that transition, my loud, boisterous voice — the one tinged with mischief and joy — shrank into a small, strangled croak.

My throat literally closed up.

As trauma therapist Linda Thai LMSW explains, silence isn’t just emotional — it’s physiological. When safety is threatened, the body adapts by constricting the muscles around the throat and tightening the breath. “Because silence can feel like safety, speaking can feel dangerous,” she teaches — so reclaiming your voice is not only emotional healing, but physical recovery .​

For the rest of my school years, I became “the quiet girl.”I never raised my hand.

I never volunteered to speak.I stayed small and safe.

Once, my high-school history teacher handed back our exams and announced,

“Here’s the highest grade — to a girl I didn’t think had a brain in her head.”

The class laughed.I kept my head down, staring at the A+ that should have made me happy.

Inside, something cracked a little deeper.

I loved learning.

I found refuge in writing.

But at fourteen years old, I lost my voice.

The Psychology of Silence

I’m not uncommon.

Psychologist Dana Jack, who coined Silencing the Self Theory, found that many women learn early to quiet their needs and emotions to keep others comfortable — what she calls:

“A survival strategy that gradually severs them from their authentic selves.”

That survival strategy was my specialty.

For years, I thought silence kept me safe.

Really, it kept me small.

I confused peace with pleasing.

Growing up in a turbulent and sometimes violent home, my main goal was to stay safe.

If other people were calm, happy, approving — I felt okay.

If they were upset, I felt responsible and would try to fix or control the situation.

I’d either hide or put on my clown mask and entertain, or my good-girl mask and stay quiet.

It’s the invisible contract so many of us live under:

If I’m good, quiet, helpful, funny, selfless — I’ll earn peace and love.

But as trauma expert Gabor Maté writes:

“Not listening to self in order to prioritize others’ needs is among the medically overlooked but pernicious ways our society’s ‘normal’ imposes a health cost on women.”

It’s a contract that never pays out.You keep clocking in, hoping goodness will finally buy you rest — and it never does.

That contract bound me to an old survival pattern — one that no longer served me.

The Day My Voice Returned

So when our counselor asked for volunteers in that rehab session, something inside me stirred.

My roommate nudged me.“Come on, let’s go first.”

Every cell in my body said no — but I stood up anyway.

And something miraculous happened.

My throat didn’t close.

My voice didn’t shake.

I spoke.

I actually enjoyed it.

For the first time in over thirty years, my voice came out strong and clear.

It startled me — not because it was loud, but because it felt free.

The women laughed, nodded, encouraged.My body felt alive, not frozen.

That was the day I realized: my voice was never lost. It had been waiting for permission — and I was the only one who could give it.

The Moment That Broke the Contract

Recently, I faced another test — a moment that forced me to choose between keeping someone else comfortable or standing up for myself.

I wish I could say I passed immediately. I didn’t.

I said yes without counting the cost.I smiled, played the good girl, and told myself it was fine.

Before I knew it, I was sliding back into old habits — over-giving, apologizing, suppressing resentment, and calling it kindness. The toll was real — emotional, physical, and financial. Time, energy, and money I couldn’t afford to lose, all spent trying to keep someone else comfortable. That’s when I saw it clearly: I had abandoned myself again.

That realization stung, but it woke something up in me. Enough was enough. I closed that old door — the one that always led to burnout — and this time, I bolted it shut.

I’ve written before about how control often hides fear — how the tighter we grip, the safer we think we are. (You can read that reflection here: Control, Fear, and the Power of Letting Go.)

But this wasn’t theory anymore. It was my life, unfolding in real time. I finally understood how every “yes” said from guilt or fear costs peace — and how peace never comes from pleasing others.

When I finally voiced my truth, every part of me wanted to shrink, smooth things over, apologize — but I didn’t. I spoke calmly and clearly. No yelling. No guilt. No justification.

It wasn’t easy. It felt like using a muscle that had been asleep for decades.But when it flexed, I knew: this was real peace — not because anyone agreed with me, but because I didn’t walk away from myself.

The God Lesson

For most of my life, I thought being a good, God-loving woman meant putting others first — even when it hurt me.I thought self-sacrifice was holy.

Now I understand that God never asked me to disappear.He asked me to be kind — not invisible.

He gave me a voice for a reason, and it honors Him when I use it with love and truth.

Taking care of myself isn’t selfish — it’s sacred.

It’s gratitude for the life He gave me.

As Psalm 139 says:

“I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

Living that truth is worship in action.

The Freedom of Self-Approval

I used to earn peace by keeping everyone else comfortable.Now I claim it by keeping myself honest and treating myself with kindness.

When I pause before saying yes, protect my time like it matters, or choose rest without guilt — that’s me paying myself in calm, confidence, and self-respect.

Research shows that people who cultivate self‑acceptance not only experience greater emotional well‑being but even live longer — up to 19 percent longer, according to a 20‑year cohort study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (Ng, Allore & Levy, 2020).

That’s the real freedom — moving from earning worth to embodying it.

Psychologist Carl Rogers once said:

“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”

That paradox is the heartbeat of healing.

True peace isn’t when everyone else is happy with you — it’s when you’re honest with yourself, even if your voice catches in your throat.

And mine doesn’t anymore.