Episode 143 - Self-Silencing is Making You Sick
A lot of the women I work with are carrying the same fear: the fear of disappointing other people. We were taught that being good means being nice, low-maintenance, and emotionally contained–even when it costs us. But staying silent doesn’t just strain our relationships; it takes a real toll on our bodies and our health. In this episode, I explore how self-silencing is making women sick, why it quietly creates resentment and loneliness, and simple ways to start speaking up and building more health, honesty, and real connection in your life. Here’s what I cover:
A Time article that dives into the statistics and psychology behind women and self-silencing
How staying quiet to keep the peace actually prevents real closeness
The cultural conditioning that causes self-silencing and why it’s not your fault
Why your emotions are a rich source of information about your needs and well-being
Three core skills that will help you be more honest without abandoning yourself
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Transcript
00:58
I could sum up this entire episode in three words. Be more disappointing. If you've been listening for a while, you know that I am really in favor of women developing the tools to be able to advocate better for themselves, which often disappoints other people, to say what they need to say, which often disappoints other people.
01:19
But some of the reading that I've been doing lately has put this need for us to be able to let other people down and to take better care of ourselves in much sharper focus. A lot of the women that I work with struggle with the same fear.
01:34
They're very afraid to disappoint other people, right? We've all been taught that being a good woman, a good employee, a good sister means being nice all the time, putting other people first, and always keeping your own emotions under control.
01:49
But here's what I know now more than ever. It affects not just your relationships. It's making your relationship sick to some degree. It also is having a tremendous effect on your health, your physical health.
02:05
And today I want to talk about an article that I read. It's out of Time magazine, came out in their September issue. It's called Self-Silencing is Making Women Sick. Because we have to talk about what self-silencing does to our relationships, but also to our bodies.
02:23
I'm 52 years old. I have just kind of come out of some of the fog of perimenopause, and I'm actively working on so many aspects of trying to get healthier so that I can age with a little more mobility and a little more freedom.
02:39
And this is just as important as weightlifting, okay? Just as important as walking the dog, just as important as making sure that I'm eating the right food. And because I want all of us to enjoy the maximum amount of freedom, we've got to talk about it.
02:55
So let's start with what happens to your body when you cannot speak up for what you need. The facts are seriously alarming. I want you to hear this next sentence and appreciate it for the bonkers statistic that it is.
03:12
Women make up almost 80% of autoimmune disease cases. That's crazy. We are much more likely to have chronic pain, insomnia, fibromyalgia, long COVID, IBS, Hashimoto's, migraines. There's a really long list.
03:33
And 80% of autoimmune disease cases are women. We are also twice as likely as men to die after a heart attack. Think about that. We experience depression and anxiety at twice the rate of men. Now, I think that some of that has got to be because men aren't speaking up, but when women report twice as likely to be depressed and anxious as men.
04:04
And we are nine times more likely to have anorexia, which is the deadliest mental health disorder. Now, maybe you're thinking, okay, but isn't that just like biology? And maybe there's some, you know, genetic component in there?
04:22
No, not exactly. So we need to go back to the late 1980s to get a really clear view of this. So in the late 1980s, a psychologist named Jack Dana started noticing that a lot of her female patients who had depression also had a pattern.
04:43
And she called it the pattern of self-silencing. Taking care of everyone else, trying to make everyone else happy. Don't express what you really feel or need. And she found that the women were doing this to try and be close to people and to get their relationship needs met.
05:04
Think about that for a second. Women were staying silent to feel close to people. We'll come back to how messed up that is in a minute. But Jack found that this behavior, which comes from patriarchy, right?
05:20
How society teaches women to act, was directly connected to depression. But here's where it gets really scary. Other research has shown that self-silencing isn't just bad for your mental health. It actually is terrible for your physical health as well.
05:37
In 2022, researchers found that women of color who said things like, quote, I rarely express my anger to people close to me, close quote, were 70% more likely to have health problems, the kind that lead to heart attacks.
05:57
Other studies have connected staying silent to IBS, chronic fatigue, and even cancer. And here's the worst finding. In one study, research followed about 4,000 people for 10 years. And they found that the women who didn't speak up when they had fights with their husbands were four times more likely to die early than women who did speak up.
06:26
Four times. And even when they looked at things like age and blood pressure and smoking and cholesterol and kind of some other health factors, it didn't change. Women who didn't speak up were four times more likely to die early than women who did.
06:44
When women push their feelings down and ignore their own needs, their bodies literally start breaking down. I want you to think about the physical toll or the sensations that you feel when you shut down your anger.
07:02
My stomach clenches. It feels like I have this kind of burning in my gut. When I'm sad, when I need help, when I feel overwhelmed and I just internalize all of that, what this article and many others are showing us is that not expressing our big emotions, not asking for help, not saying what we need, not knowing how to express a need, not being able to resolve problems, not being able to have difficult conversations actually result in our bodies being sicker.
07:40
It's a serious, serious problem, not just for our physical health, but because of the fact that it can produce this four times more likely statistic where we actually die. So I'm bringing it up because there are some skills, we're going to talk about them, that can absolutely address this.
08:03
And I'm at that midlife age. I know so many of the women that I talk with who are like, I just, I have run out of fucks to give. I just don't quite have the skills yet to be able to express myself the way I want.
08:18
I want this episode to be really useful for you. We got to talk about one other thing, though. Staying silent isn't just making women sick. It's also making our relationships sick as well. Remember how Dana Jack described self-silencing and how women do it so that they can feel close to people and get their relationship needs met?
08:40
It's interesting because it's like the only need we have is to feel close to people. We don't actually know that we have the opportunity to show up as our real selves. That's interesting to note. Here's something really ironic and actually pretty cool to stack on top of that.
08:55
Staying silent actually prevents the very closeness that women are trying to protect and create by staying silent. If you can just see this pattern, you know, a woman is taught, if I have needs that are too big, if I have wants that are considered too much or too dramatic, if I have opinions that other people don't like, if I am really myself, I will be rejected.
09:21
So I stay silent and then nobody gets to know the real me and I don't actually have that closeness. It is such a sad irony. Think about it. When you hide your real feelings, people don't actually know you.
09:35
When you pretend you're fine when you're not, when you say yes, when you mean no, when you armor up and you get really hyper independent and say, you know, I don't need help, I can do it on my own. And you keep people at a distance, you're actually building relationships based on a pretend version of yourself, a performative version.
09:54
Your partner, your friends, your family, they are in a relationship with someone who isn't showing them who they really are. And the sadness is we know it. That's why we feel lonely in our relationship sometimes.
10:08
That's why we feel resentful when other people don't support us the same way we support everybody else. They don't know we need that support. We have programmed them to think that we are all capable, that we can, you know, do it on our own, and that actually that's how we want to do it.
10:27
I talk to so many women who are in relationships with people that care about them, but they still feel completely alone and scared that if people really knew who they were, that they would be abandoned.
10:44
And that's why so many of us are dealing with so much loneliness and resentment. Resentment builds when there is no honesty. I know you know the feeling, right? Nice on the outside, angry on the inside, smiling while you do whatever it is you're doing for other people, secretly furious that no one offered to help, saying I'm fine through clenched teeth, even while your body is just like throbbing and thrumming on the inside,
11:14
keeping track of every single thing you're upset or hurt about. And that resentment, it's not just poisoning your relationships. It's poisoning your body. I know there's much better medical explanations for this, but the surge of cortisol and adrenaline that just bathes our body in all of those stress hormones, it is not good for us.
11:39
It's not good for us. One of the things that also falls apart when there isn't honesty is trust. When you don't speak honestly about what you really need and want, and then you get upset about it, people learn they can't trust your yes.
11:55
They can't trust your quote unquote, I'm fine, right? They start to feel like something is off with you, even though they can't explain it. And they do what humans do, right? They self-protect. Maybe there's a little more distance.
12:09
And you lose trust in yourself too. When you've ignored your needs for too long, sometimes you don't even know what they are anymore. You genuinely don't know what you want. We become strangers to ourselves when all of our energy and effort is focused on doing everything for everyone else.
12:28
It's the most common thing I hear from women when I talk to them. I don't even know who I am and I don't really know what I truly like. We also have to be honest about something else. Our silence puts burdens on other people.
12:47
When we don't tell people what we need, we're basically asking them to read our minds, right? Which sets them up to fail because they can't do that. And then we get mad at them for not being able to intuit something that we never said.
13:03
There's distance. There's confusion. Sometimes there's walking on eggshells around us trying to figure out what's wrong. Staying silent doesn't protect our relationships. It doesn't bring us closeness.
13:18
It doesn't protect them from fights. It just makes the conflict quieter, almost constant, and it goes into our bodies. It goes underground. This is saddest in our most intimate relationships because without self-disclosure, without sharing who we really are, what we really like, what we really want, we can't have intimacy and connection.
13:46
And in some of our more, maybe less important relationships, they just kind of stay surface level, right? Maybe they just kind of stay in a shallow place. And maybe that's fine, conversations on the surface.
13:59
But it's really sad when that is what is happening in our most important relationships. When there's all that resentment underneath and all that anger, we have to keep our conversations on the surface because going deeper could lead to conflict.
14:17
There's emotional distance everywhere. And a lot of the women I know just would call that quote unquote keeping the peace. It comes at such a high cost, the loneliness. I speak to so many women who are really, really lonely.
14:34
They long to be known. They long to be seen. They long to be heard. They long to know who they really are and to live a truly just authentic and satisfying life. But this is what self-silencing does to connection.
14:50
It destroys it from the inside out. So it is making us sick and it is destroying our relationships. It's destroying the potential for intimacy, the potential for deeply rewarding, vulnerable, intimate connection.
15:09
Hey, quick interruption. If you are currently holding like 47 mental tabs open, the gifts, the travel, your own emotions, everyone else's feelings, I have something that will actually make this holiday season easier for you.
15:24
I've got two workshops that are available right now, instant access, that you can watch for free through December 31st. One is about setting and keeping boundaries, and the other is how to disappoint someone and not die.
15:37
They're short, they're good, and they will help you lower your holiday stress and remind you of some skills that are really useful and essential all year round, but especially right now. The links in the show notes, go grab a tiny bit of relief.
15:52
Back to the episode. So we have to talk about this because I never want to have a podcast episode where I blame women for this because it's not our fault, right? We keep staying silent, even when it's literally killing us and ruining our relationships, but it's not our fault.
16:12
That is what our culture rewards. All the way from young women to old, we get praised for being chill, right? For being so go with the flow, so low needs. I have so many women who tell me that they were praised for not having needs by their own mothers who were also overwhelmed, right?
16:32
We get praised in the workplace for doing all our work all by ourselves and for helping other people on the team or in the department get their work done as well. There's so much praise and adoration for women who don't speak up.
16:50
But the things that we are praised for are not actually good. We think that they're strengths, but they're actually really toxic. In other words, women who tell me things like, I don't deserve to put myself first, or I don't know how to put myself first.
17:10
I agree to things even when I don't want to. I don't speak up when I have a need or a want. I can't disappoint other people, right? My friends need me or my family needs me to show up. If I tell my husband what I really think, he'll leave or he won't like me.
17:29
While we think we are generating closeness with that, I hope you can hear in just the message of this episode and the message of that time article that what we're really doing is risking our health, risking dying early, and being lonely and not having the satisfying relationships that we want.
17:54
So what do we do? First, we need to stop treating our emotions like they're problems to shut down. We need to stop treating our emotions like they're problems. Your emotions are the richest source of usually untapped information about you.
18:18
Your emotions are trying to tell you something. Anger. I think anger is your best friend. Anger is the emotion that loves you the most. Sometimes it's trying to tell you something about something that needs to change about your situation.
18:34
Sadness might mean you're losing something important. Grief, that there's changes in your life, that there's something that needs attention. Anxiety might mean a need to feel safe. So instead of pushing that anger away or hiding your sadness, try asking yourself, what do I need right now?
18:55
In fact, do this with me. It's my favorite exercise. Put your hands on your chest or somewhere else that feels like loving connection. And just ask yourself, what do I need right now? What are my emotions trying to tell me?
19:10
Our fatigue is trying to tell us we are doing too much. Our fear is trying to tell us that we might need more support. Our overwhelm is telling us that we need more resources. Our loneliness is telling us we want genuine connection.
19:28
And none of that is selfish. You deserve to be able to feel emotions that are totally human, totally normal, totally part of the human experience, and learn about what that emotion is trying to tell you to improve your life.
19:46
That's not selfish. We also need to get a little bit more comfortable setting boundaries, right? Be more disappointing. I know that for women who have been taught that being likable is like everything, setting boundaries might even feel wrong, feel selfish, feels harsh.
20:04
Many women feel that if they actually say what they need or where their limits are, it will ruin their relationships. But the opposite is true. When you set healthy boundaries, your relationships actually get stronger and healthier.
20:21
I have lived it myself. I have seen it over and over again in the clients that I work with in my group coaching program. When we are able to be truthful about where our limits are, relationships get healthier and stronger.
20:38
All relationships? No, I'm going to be honest, right? There are some people who enjoy and benefit from your lack of boundaries. They are probably not going to like it when you show up with a lot more boundaries, but those aren't the relationships that you need to be investing in.
20:57
And we actually want to know. We actually want to know who we should be putting some time and energy into developing a closer relationship with and who we shouldn't, because that's what boundaries do.
21:08
They create clarity. They create trust. They let people know where you actually stand. They allow real closeness to happen because you're finally showing up as your real self. I have a friend who does not like drop-ins, right?
21:26
She does not like it when you show up to her house. And one time I did it and I witnessed firsthand that she didn't like it. And so when we were talking later, I felt really bad. I felt like I had done something wrong.
21:40
And when she told me, like, I have this need to just know who's going to be coming over to my house. It helps me get ready to receive them as my best self. It allows me to either say, you know, yes or no to you coming over.
21:56
And it was definitely uncomfortable because I wasn't used to communicating in such honest, clear terms. But it has been such a gift to our friendship for me to know exactly where she is on that and for me to be able to honor that.
22:12
So the closeness that we have now actually increased after she told me what her boundary was and what she needed from me. Having healthy relationships isn't just emotionally good. This is where our healthy relationships and our physical health really enhance each other.
22:31
Healthy relationships are physically protective. One study showed that people with supportive relationships have a 50% lower risk of dying early. Let me say that again. Real connection, the kind that is built on honesty, on self-disclosure, on speaking up, literally helps you live longer.
22:55
And it makes the quality of the time that we are alive so much more joyful. I want to be clear, right? This is a process. Being authentic takes some time. It's not about being reactive. It's not about dumping all your emotions on other people without any thought, right?
23:13
I think you know that. It's about staying connected to yourself while also staying connected with others. But there's both self-connection and connection to others. That's part of it, learning how to maintain, first of all, how to create, and then how to maintain a connection to yourself.
23:33
You're already very connected to other people, right? I already know that. But the connection to you is a skill that we can work on together. And then, as you have connection with yourself, you need to learn to say different words like, I can't do that, but I really care about you.
23:52
Or, that won't work for me, but what I can do is this. Or, what you said really hurt my feelings and I need to talk to you about it. Or, I love you and I'm also very angry right now and I need a chance to deal with that on my own.
24:12
It's about disappointing people honestly with what is really going on and then being able to take care of those big emotions that come up in us. So it's about staying connected to ourselves. If we want to pull out three skills here, number one, staying connected to you.
24:34
Number two, saying different words. And number three, knowing how to take care of the big emotions that come up for you when you start to self-disclose, when you start to say what you need, when you start to be more honest.
24:51
Those skills actually start to build a new way of you being in relationship in the world. I'm not saying it's easy. I'm saying that it needs to happen because your health and your relationships really depend on it.
25:08
It means we need to stop celebrating women for sacrificing themselves, right? For overgiving and overdoing and being able to do it all on their own. We need to start celebrating women for respecting themselves enough to have limitations, to have boundaries.
25:25
It means we need to teach our daughters that their needs matter just as much as everyone else's. It means that we need to create a new normal where women can honor their emotions, get their needs met, put those needs into words and share them, and actually communicate in honest, beautiful ways.
25:45
I think it is one of the most incredible gifts of where I am in life right now. Perimenopause, midlife, it is just really clear to me what matters and what I want my life to look like. And because of coaching, I have the skills to get that.
26:03
And I really want to share those skills with you. If any of this sounds like you are ready to develop some of these skills, there's a link in my bio. There's a link in the show notes. Set up a call with me.
26:16
We'll have 60 minutes to talk about what you need. I will send you on your way with concrete skill work to do some of these things for yourself. Because here is what I want you to understand. Self-silencing, it's literally making you sick.
26:36
It's destroying your body. It's increasing your risk of heart disease, autoimmune disorders, chronic illness, and dying early. And maybe it's not destroying your relationships, but it's in the way of the true intimacy that you really want.
26:55
It's creating resentment. It's breaking down trust. And it's keeping everybody lonely, even when we're sometimes surrounded by people that love us. It's really heartbreaking. Women who stay silent for the sake of a relationship, they don't get it.
27:12
It's destroying that very relationship. So, yes, you need to be more disappointing. We need to learn how to tell the truth more, even when it's uncomfortable. And there are real skills, like I know that can be terrifying.
27:27
I felt terrified, but there are real skills that you can learn to connect to yourself, to learn how to say different words, and to take care of your emotions and your nervous system so that you can do it.
27:43
You deserve it. You deserve to be both healthy and truly known. Thanks for listening. I'll see you next week.
