How are you? Fine.
How’s work? Fine.
How’s your marriage? Fine.
How are your friendships going? Fine.

Do you sense a theme? I do. I say fine when I can’t find the words that really tell my story.

I haven’t opened up to many people…and what I did share was only happy. It was only the side of me that I knew people would enjoy and like…the side that people wouldn’t question too hard.

I’m a people-pleaser. I want people to like me and see me as someone who is easy to get along with. I tried to find things in common with people. I was empathetic and sympathetic to other peoples stories.

Decades of biting my tongue and not allowing myself to say what was on my mind, left me without a voice. But even worse, it caused me to lose who I am. I have lost the ability to find the words because for years I didn’t allow them to flow out of my mouth. If you don’t use your words, eventually you’ll lose them.

As I’ve mentioned many times before, I see my therapist every other week and I absolutely love her. But with therapy comes some hard truths sometimes. I had this realization that I still hold a lot back…even from her. It’s a situation where I get mad at myself because I know that she is a safe person for me and my time with her is my safe spot. But still, I hold back. Decades of “training” myself to not show every side of myself to someone is hard to undo.

But it’s not just prevalent in my therapy sessions. It is becoming more prevalent in my marriage and my bff friendship as well. A question is asked or a topic is talked about and I have feelings about it…I can tell…good and bad, I bite my tongue. Two people who have promised to love me no matter what. Two people who want to help me grow and I find myself clenching my jaw and keeping things to myself. Not because I “want” to, not because I “need” to…because I literally don’t know the words to use to explain how I’m feeling to other people.