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How are you? I'm good. How have you been? I'm fine. You sure? Girl, yeah, I'm okay.

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But you're not. You're tired, you're anxious, you're angry, you're overwhelmed, your relationship is falling apart. You're crying when nobody's around. You're having conversations in your head that you're too afraid to have allowed. You can't sleep. Or maybe you all you want to do is sleep. You're going to work, taking care of the kids, answering emails, paying bills, showing up for everybody, posting pictures, smiling, laughing, looking like yourself. But inside, something is wrong. And because you're still functioning, you keep telling yourself it must not be that bad. Because somewhere along the way, we started believing that if you're still able to function, you must be okay. And baby, those are not the same thing. You can function while you're hurting, you can perform while you're depressed. You can accomplish things while you're anxious. You can take care of everybody while neglecting yourself. You can smile while you're home as hell. You can go to church Sunday morning after crying Saturday night. You can post a beautiful anniversary picture while knowing that relationship is breaking you down. You can be everybody else's strong friend and be barely holding yourself together. And sometimes the people closest to you won't know because you've gotten that good at pretending. But pretending does come with a cost, and eventually the bill comes due. Welcome back to the Quietest Kept Podcast. I am Shanti B, your master certified mental health coach, author, speaker, and journal bay. And baby, we are in October. October is domestic violence awareness month. And I knew when I started planning this episode that I couldn't talk about pretending you're okay without talking about the people who are pretending because they're trying to survive something nobody else can see. So today's conversation is going to go a little deeper. We're talking about emotional suppression, survival mode, about that damn word strong. We're talking about relationships, we're talking about domestic violence, asking for help, and we're talking about what happens when you have convinced everybody around you that you're okay, including yourself. Let's get into it. I want to start right there because some of us have been performing fine for so long that we don't even realize it's a performance anymore. It's automatic. How are you? Fine. How's everything? Good. How's the relationship? We're good. How's work? Busy but good. How are you? Oh, I'm all right. And sometimes that's just small talk. Right? I understand. Everybody doesn't need to be in your business. And I'm not telling you to walk in a Kroger and tell the cashier your childhood trauma because she asked how your day was. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about when you don't tell anybody, not your friends, not your family, not your therapist, not your coach, not your partner, and sometimes not even yourself. You keep minimizing it. I'm just tired. I'm just stressed. Oh, it's been a rough week. Oh, this is just a season, it'll pass. I'm probably overthinking. Maybe I'm being too sensitive. Well, maybe I'm expecting too much. Other people have it worse than I do. I should be grateful. I'll be all right. And before you know it, you have been all right for three years or more. And at some point, at some point, we have to ask, what is fine costing me? So this conversation is personal for me because keeping things in is something I learned early. I didn't grow up in a house where we sat around talking about feelings. There wasn't a baby, tell me how that made you feel, or there wasn't a lot of emotional processing. I learned to keep things in, push through, handle it, keep going. And when you've been doing that since childhood, it doesn't feel unhealthy, it feels normal. You don't call it emotional suppression, you call it that's just how I am. You don't call it survival mode. You call yourself strong. You don't say, I don't know how to ask for help. You just say, I'd rather do it myself. You don't say, I don't trust people enough to be vulnerable. You say, I'm private. You see how that works. We can take survival patterns and turn them into personality traits before we know it. And I know I've said this before, but it needs to be repeated. Sometimes what you call your personality is simply protection. And for me, journaling eventually created a place where I could tell the truth because paper doesn't need me to be okay. My journal didn't interrupt me in the middle of writing, it didn't tell me you're overreacting. It didn't compare my pain to somebody else's, it didn't tell me what I should feel. I could write, I'm angry, I'm hurt, I'm scared, I'm tired, I don't know what to do, I don't like this, I don't want this anymore. And sometimes the first person you have to stop pretending with is you. So why do we why do we pretend? Let's talk about that. It's easy for somebody to say, just tell somebody, just ask for help, just leave, just speak, just speak up. I hate when people throw that word just in front of a complicated situation. Just leave, just set a boundary, stop caring. Just and watch me put just in front of it, just set a boundary, just stop caring, just get over it, just tell somebody, baby. If it were that simple, we all would be we'd be blah blah. We all would be doing it. I can't even get it out fast enough. Because it ain't that simple. Sometimes people pretend because they're ashamed, sometimes because they're scared, sometimes they spend years building an image, sometimes because they're the one everybody else depends on, sometimes because they don't want people worrying about them, sometimes because they were taught that family business stays in the family. Sometimes they don't want people judging their partner, sometimes because they already know what their friends are gonna say, sometimes because admitting the truth would mean they have to admit something to themselves, sometimes because they've tried to speak before and nobody listened, and sometimes pretending is part of survival. That's especially important when we talk about domestic violence. Domestic violence doesn't always look like what you think it looks like. Let's talk about it. Because when some people hear domestic violence, they immediately immediately picture a black eye or bruises, a busted lip, somebody getting punched, police at the house. And yes, physical violence is definitely domestic violence, but abuse doesn't begin and end with somebody putting their hands on you. Abuse can look like control, intimidation, isolation, sexual coercion, threats, stalking, constant monitoring, control and money, deciding who you can talk to, demanding to know where you are, destroying things that you care about, threatening themselves to control what you do, making decisions that should belong to you, and emotional and psychological abuse can leave somebody questioning their own reality. You start thinking, maybe I am too sensitive. Yeah, maybe I did cause it. Well, maybe if I wouldn't have said that, or maybe if I hadn't gone over there. Well, maybe if I'd have answered my phone, maybe if I would have had dinner ready, maybe if I kept my mouth shut, or maybe if I love them better. No, ma'am. I need you to hear me. Someone else's decision to abuse, intimidate, threaten, control, stalk, or harm you is not something you earn by being perfect. And this is where pretending you're okay becomes so dangerous because you can get so accustomed to managing another person's behavior that you stop asking whether their behavior is even acceptable. You're constantly asking, what do I need to do so they don't get upset? Instead of asking, why am I responsible for managing another adult's reactions in the first damn place? And that question matters. Now let me give you some numbers because this is not some rare issue happening to other people. Current CDC data shows that more than one in three women are more than and one more than one in six men in the United States have been have experienced sexual violence, physical violence, and are stalking by an intimate partner during their lifetime. And psychological aggression matters too. In CDC's 2023 and 2024 data found that nearly one in three women reported experiencing psychological aggression by an intimate partner during their lifetime. And some of what was measured as coercive control included partners controlling the money, isolating someone from family or friends, demanding to know where they were and what they're doing, making threats, making decisions for them, or destroying something important to them. So when we talk about domestic violence awareness, we have to stop waiting for a bruise before we take somebody's fear seriously. Abuse is not only physical. And sometimes, and somebody does not have to wait until it becomes physical before they're allowed to say this relationship doesn't feel safe. But they never hit me. Okay. Do you feel afraid of them? Can you say no to them? Can you disagree? Can you have friends? Can you go somewhere without being interrogated? Can you spend your own money that you work hard for? Can you wear what you want? Can you tell them something they don't want to hear without worrying about what will happen afterwards? Do they monitor your phone? Do they threaten you? Do they threaten themselves to keep from you from leaving them? Do they intentionally humiliate you? Do they isolate you? Do they control access to money? Do they repeatedly make you question what you know happened? Because saying they never hit me is not only the question. A healthy relationship should require you to become smaller so somebody else can feel powerful. And please stop asking why didn't they just leave? This is one of those things that gets under my fucking skin. Well, why did she stay so long? Why did he go back? Why didn't they call the police? Why didn't they tell anybody? Why didn't they just leave? Baby, you are asking the wrong person the wrong question. Leaving an abusive relationship can be so complicated. There may be children, there may be money involved, housing insecurity, pets, immigration concerns, fear, threats, isolation, embarrassment, religious pressure, family pressure, hope, love, transportation, a disability, and sometimes danger. A person can know something is unhealthy and still not be ready or be safely able to leave. So instead of asking, why are you still there? Try, how can I support you? Instead of I told you to leave his ass. How about what do you need right now? Instead of if you go back, I'm done helping you. Try, I'm concerned about your safety, and I'm still here. People experiencing abuse already have somebody trying to control them. Support should not become another form of control. I'm gonna let that sink in. Now, here's our hard truth of the week. Looking okay and being okay are two completely different things. And I need somebody to get that. Your productivity doesn't prove that you're okay. Your makeup doesn't prove that you're okay. The degrees hanging on your wall don't prove you're okay. How much money you have in your bank account doesn't prove you're okay. Just because you're married, that doesn't prove you're okay. Your beautiful house doesn't prove you're okay. Your ministry doesn't prove you're okay. Your business doesn't prove you're okay. Your social media doesn't prove you're okay. Your ability to show up for everybody else doesn't prove that you're okay. And your strength, your strength does not mean you don't need support. Sometimes the strongest looking person in the room is using every ounce of strength they have just to make it through the day without anybody noticing. Now, y'all already know I have some feelings about this strong woman shit, especially when it comes to black and brown women. Because people will compliment your strength while benefiting from the fact that you never asked them for anything. Oh, you're so strong. Okay, but can I be tired? You always figure it out. Okay, but can somebody help me this time? You're so independent. Okay, but is anybody safe enough for me to depend on? Hmm. Sometimes strong becomes a cage. And then when life gets heavy, we think asking for help means we're failing at being who everybody thinks we are. No, that's not what it is. Strength should be something you can use, not something you're sentenced to. You should be allowed to put it down. You should be allowed to say, I can't handle this by myself. I need somebody, I need therapy, I need support, I need a break, I need somewhere safe to go. I need help figuring out what comes next. That that does not cancel your strength, babe. That is strength. Now, this is my right here. You got up, you went to work, you got the kids to school, you finished that project, you made dinner, you answered the messages, you posted the content, you hosted that meeting, you handled your business. And then you went home, sat on the edge of the bed, and stared at the wall. Because you accomplished everything on the list, you tell yourself, see, I'm okay. No, that just means you're functioning, and thank God that you're able to function. But let's not confuse functionality with wellness. Sometimes functioning is exactly what survival mode looks like. Your body is saying, We got shit to do, we'll fall apart later, and later keeps getting rescheduled. Monday, after this deadline, after this kid graduate, after the holidays, after this project, after everybody else is okay, after, after, after. When is your appointment with yourself? You know, sometimes we won't say I'm overwhelmed, but your body says it. We don't say I'm scared, but your body does. We don't say I'm exhausted, but our body does. We don't say I don't feel safe, but our body may keep reacting. That doesn't mean every headache, stomach ache, sleepless night, or racing heart has one psychological explanation. Please go to the damn doctor when you need to go to the doctor. We're not diagnosing ourselves from our podcast. Let me make that clear. But your emotional health matters. Chronic stress matters, living in fear matters. Constantly monitoring another person's mood matters. And if your nervous system never gets the message that you're safe enough to rest, you may get very good at surviving while forgetting what peace actually feels like. Sometimes peace feels strange. And this is something I want people who are healing to understand. If chaos has been normal, peace may feel weird. You might mistake calm for boredom. You might keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. You might enter a healthy relationship and think, damn, something missing. Yeah, you know what's missing? That drama, that confusion. Having to prove yourself is missing. Wondering where you stand is missing. Trying to read somebody's mood before you speak is missing. And because your body recognizes chaos, you may mistake familiarity for a connection. That's why healing isn't only about leaving unhealthy situations. Sometimes it's learning how to live without recreating them. Hello, somebody. But I love them. Okay. You can love somebody who hurts you. That's one of the reasons these conversations are complicated. We like neat stories. Good person, bad person. Love, no love. Stay, leave. But baby, real life can be way messier than that. You can remember beautiful moments with someone who harmed you. You can miss them. You can grieve them. You can hope they change. You can remember who they were when things were good. You can feel guilty. You can still love them. And none of those feelings require you to pretend harmful behavior is healthy. Love is a feeling. Safety is a condition. And those two are not the same thing. And love should never require you to lie to yourself about whether you're safe. I want to slow down here. Because this isn't the part where I yell, leave. I don't know your circumstances. And if you're experiencing abuse, your safety matters more than somebody else's timeline for what they think you should do. You deserve informed support. You deserve options. You deserve to make decisions about your life. A personalized safety plan can help somebody think through ways to increase safety while they're still in a relationship, while they're still preparing to leave, or after they've left. And I want to make sure those resources for this episode are in the show notes. So if you believe you are in immediate danger, contact emergency services where you are. In the United States, the National Domestic Violence Hotline has advocates available around the clock, 247-365. You can call 1-800-799-SAFE. That's 1-800-799-7233. You can also text the word start to 88788. And if you're worried that somebody may be monitoring your phone or internet activity, please think about your digital safety when looking for resources. There is no shame in asking somebody to help you think through your options. Now, I want you, I want to bring this back to everybody listening. Whether domestic violence is part of your story or not, I want you to do what I call a truth check. Take off the performance for a minute, just for a minute. Not who everybody thinks you are. Safe. Can I say no? Can I be honest? Can I resist? Can I rest? Do I have anybody I can call and say, I am not okay today? Not, I'm having a rough day, LOL. No, I'm not okay. Can you tell somebody that? And if the answer is no, I want you to think about why. Because isolation makes pretending easier, and pretending makes isolation deeper. Now, that's the difference between privacy and secrecy. Those are two different things. Everybody doesn't deserve access to your story. Privacy is healthy. I believe in privacy. You don't owe social media your breakdown, you don't owe your coworkers your trauma. You don't owe everybody an explanation. But there is a difference between privacy and secrecy that is keeping you trapped. Privacy says, I decide who gets access to this. Secrecy says, nobody can know because I'm ashamed, I'm afraid, or I'm protecting something that's hurting me. That's different. Ask yourself, am I protecting my peace or am I protecting a problem? Sit with that. Now what happens when you finally tell the truth? Sometimes nothing dramatic happens. Sometimes you just say, I'm not doing well. And somebody says, I had no idea. Of course they didn't. You made sure they didn't. And that's not me blaming you. Sometimes hiding what you knew, sometimes hiding was what you knew how to do. But people cannot respond to information they don't have. There may be someone in your life who genuinely wants to support you, but thinks you're good because you keep telling them you're good. Give safe people a chance to know the truth. Not everybody. Safe people. People who can hear your truth without making it about themselves. People who don't gossip. People who don't rush you. People who don't shame you. People who don't tell you what you should feel. People who don't use your vulnerable moments against you later. Those people start there. Maybe the truth is I'm overwhelmed. I'm lonely. I'm depressed. I'm scared. My relationship isn't what everybody thinks it is. Maybe it's something happened to me. I'm angry. I'm grieving. I need help. Maybe it's I don't know what I need yet, but I know I can't keep pretending I'm okay. That is enough to start. Now go grab your journal. And because y'all know I give you 47 prompts if you let me, we're gonna just do five. Only five, but don't rush these. Number one, where in my life am I performing okay instead of telling myself the truth about how I actually feel? Not what you should feel. What do you actually feel? Number two, what am I afraid would happen if the people closest to me knew what I was really dealing with? Judgment, rejection, pity, pressure? Would you have to make a decision? Would the image change? What's underneath the secrecy? Number three, where have I mistaken functioning for healing? What are you still carrying just because you've learned how to carry it without dropping it? Number four, do I feel safe emotionally, physically, financially, sexually, and psychologically in my closest relationships? And if your immediate answer is it's complicated, don't judge yourself. I want you to explore that complication. Number five, what is one truth I need to say aloud to be a safe person to a safe person instead of let me start all over. I'm sorry, yeah. Stumbling over my words. I want to get them out so fast. Okay, number five, what is one truth I need to say out loud to a safe person instead of continuing to carry it along? One truth, one person. Start there. Alright, so what I'm unlearning this week. I'm unlearning that being strong means suffering quietly. It doesn't. I'm unlearning that privacy requires isolation. It doesn't. I'm unlearning that needing help means I failed. It doesn't. And I'm unlearning that I have to wait until I'm completely falling apart before I'm allowed to say, this is too much. Baby, you can ask for help while you're still standing. You don't have to wait until you're on the floor. All right, let me give it to you one more time. Hard truth of the week. You can fool everybody else into believing you're okay and still be the one paying the price for the performance. Because everybody else goes home. Everybody else goes to sleep. Everybody else moves on with their day. You're the one living inside of the life you're pretending doesn't hurt. So the goal isn't to convince everybody you're struggling, the goal is to stop lying to yourself about what needs attention. All right, so this episode is so connected to why I wrote Quiet is kept. Because the title itself says it, Quiet is kept, things we don't say, things families don't talk about, things that happen behind closed doors, the things we survive and then act like they didn't affect us, the things we carry because nobody taught us what to do with them. I wrote about my life because I got tired of silence, having so much power over me. And one thing I learned through therapy and journaling is that putting language to something can change your relationship with it. It won't dramatically and magically erase it, and it won't make everything okay overnight. But naming something matters. You can't work on what you refuse to acknowledge. So if these conversations have been helping you, I want you to go and read Quiet is kept. And don't just read it as if it's my story. Keep your journal beside you and pay attention to what my story brings up about yours. And if today's episode made you realize I've been pretending for a long ass time, or I know I'm not okay, but I don't know what comes next. That's the kind of work that we can explore in coaching. Now let me be very clear because this episode includes domestic violence. Coaching is not a substitute for emergency services, domestic violence, advocacy, therapy, medical care, or legal assistance when those services are needed. If your immediate concern is abuse or safety, I want you to connect it with people trained specifically to help you think through safety and your options. But if you're in a place where you're working on rebuilding yourself, learning boundaries, finding your voice, breaking people pleasing patterns, reconnecting with who you are, choosing yourself, and figuring out how you want your life to look moving forward, that's where my coaching work comes in. Because sometimes after you survive something, the next question becomes well, shit, how do I live now? Not just survive, live. And that's the work. And if you're ready for that, you can learn more about working with me through Boswell Coaching and Consulting at shantyb.com. Now, before you go, I have a different call to action this week. Yes, of course, I want you to subscribe to the podcast. Yes, leave a review, yes, share the episode. But this week I especially want you to share this episode with the person who always says, I'm fine. Whether it be the strong friend, the co-worker who never misses a day, the woman who takes care of everybody, the man nobody ever thinks to check on, the person whose life looks perfect online. Don't send it because you're diagnosing them. Send it because sometimes people need permission to know that somebody cares. And maybe instead of asking, How are you? ask, no, really, how are you doing? And then be quiet long enough to hear the answer. Now, here is the quote I want you to take with you this week. You don't have to wait until your life falls apart to admit that something in it is hurting you. Again, you don't have to wait until your life falls apart to admit that something in it is hurting you. Now, before I let you go, I want to talk directly to the person who needed this episode. Maybe nobody knows. Maybe everybody thinks you're okay. Maybe you're listening to this in your car at work with your headphones in. Maybe you're sitting beside the very person you're afraid of. Maybe your situation isn't domestic violence at all. Maybe you're simply exhausted from carrying something you've never said out loud. Whatever brought you here, I want you to hear this. You do not have to perform for me. You don't have to convince me you're strong. You don't have to make your pain sound pretty. You don't have to compare it to somebody else's. You don't have to wait until it's worse. You don't need a dramatic enough story before you ask for support. You are allowed to tell the truth. Whether it be I'm tired, I'm hurting, I'm scared, I'm overwhelmed, I need help, something isn't right, I don't feel safe, I don't know what to do. Those are complete sentences. And telling the truth doesn't mean you have to have the entire solution today. Sometimes telling the truth is simply how you stop carrying the problem alone. And somebody, and if somebody trusts you enough to tell you what's happening their relationship, don't make their disclosure about what you've don't make their disclosure about what you would have done. Don't shame them, don't interrogate them, don't say, I would have never let nobody do that to me. You don't know what you would do until you are living in it. Listen, believe them, ask what they need, help them connect with appropriate support, and respect that their safety and their decisions belong to them. Because domestic violence awareness month cannot just be purple ribbons or social media graphics. Awareness should change the way we listen, the way we recognize abuse, the way we respond to survivors, and the way we stop treating. Why didn't you leave? Like it's a more important question than why did someone who claimed to love you believe they had the right to control or hurt you? That's the conversation. And for everybody listening, not just the survivors of domestic violence, I want you to check in with yourself this week. Not the version of you that everybody sees, you. How are you really doing? And if the answer isn't fine, baby, stop forcing it to be. Tell the truth somewhere safe. I'm Sean T B, and this is the Quietest Skep Podcast. Keep healing, keep choosing yourself, and please stop believing that you have to suffer quietly to prove you're strong. I'll talk to you next time.