Openness

Why we fall silent when life hurts – and what freedom lies in taking off our own armour. In extreme cases, silence can be life-threatening. It quietly isolates us from the inside out, gnaws at our self-confidence, and in the worst case costs lives. Why, then, is it still so hard for us to speak up when life hurts? Viewed without blame, our silence is an old suit of armour. Across generations – through wars, poverty, and the hard reconstruction after 1945 – an iron rule of survival applied: pull yourself together and function. Our ancestors had to pack away their pain in order to build the prosperity we enjoy today. Their silence was not coldness, but necessity. ...

“My doctor says I have the most extreme version of psychiatric diagnoses.” That’s how I put it. Bipolar Type 1, with psychoses. I say it at the bar, over coffee, on a walk. Openly. Directly. For years. What happens next is almost always the same: people start talking. “My brother has that too.” “My aunt was in the clinic for years.” “In our family, no one talks about that.” Sometimes they want to unload. Sometimes they want to understand. Often both. ...