The three-legged stool of chaos, quiet, and loneliness

5 recommendations for facing silence with grace

I recently reconnected with a friend and the conversation conjured a visual. Sometimes, when you are immersed in chaos—drowning, gasping for air amidst choppy and dark waters—it seems logical to reach out for something to pull you from the deep.

But instead, you withdraw, squeeze your eyes shut, sink.

Or, in the words of my friend, you make yourself smaller and quieter because the overwhelm is unbearable.

I get it. When I went into what ended up being a 58-hour natural labor and delivery with Violet, the experience was so physically and emotionally intense that I was like a cat hiding in a closet to birth kittens. Inconsistent with my nature to that point, I didn’t want to talk to anyone other than Jon. I disappeared off the internet. When I returned to the world several days later and caught up on social media, I learned that people took my silence for catastrophe. There were hurt, angry feelings with which to contend as a result of my withdrawal.

As I talked with my friend, my mind skimmed along the many waves of choppy and dark waters I have experienced over the past few years. There have been times when I desperately wanted to air my grievances and times when I was tired as fuck of hearing my own narrative. It was a struggle to show up in my relationships. I had so little in the tank to give, and also, answering the simple question, “How are you?” was both exhausting and I didn’t want to be a burden.

And so there were many times when it just felt easier to withdraw, squeeze my eyes shut, sink, get smaller and quieter.

The conundrum, of course, is that the chaotic times when you cope by making yourself smaller and quieter can result in brutal loneliness. And so you sit on a three-legged stool of isolation. Those times might be when you need people the most, and you need people to show up in a way that offers space for it to be about you, not them—which is not the easiest for human beings. (See earlier note about my needing to deal with other people’s hurt, angry feelings about my silence after a 58-hour labor and delivery.)

If you are contending with a relationship that has gone quiet, here is how I recommend facing silence with grace: