The Worst Screams Are the Ones Nobody Hears

People scream for many reasons.

You scream when you are happy, furious, frightened, in pain, desperate to be heard, or trying to make somebody understand that you have reached your limit.

There are also people who communicate by shouting from seven in the morning while absolutely nothing is happening. That belongs to another branch of human research.

But those are not the screams that worry me most.

The worst ones make no sound.

When somebody screams, you know what to do

The problem begins precisely when there is no noise

You turn around.
Ask what happened.
Run.
Become frightened.

Something outside warns you that something inside is wrong.

The problem begins when there is no noise at all. When somebody gets up, showers, gets dressed, works, answers messages, pays bills, asks what everyone wants for dinner, and even laughs at something stupid while carrying an uproar inside that nobody can hear.

It happens more often than we think.

We learn to suffer with astonishing normality

How the training for silent suffering begins

At first it hurts, and people can tell.
Later it still hurts, but there are things to do.
That is when the training begins.

You have to get up because you have work. Prepare food because somebody is hungry. Answer ‘fine, thank you’ because explaining how you truly feel could take forty minutes, and the person who asked probably was not expecting that kind of report either.

So you learn.
To smile.
Change the subject.
Say, ‘I'm tired.’

The dictionary of someone suffering in silence

‘I'm tired’

What a useful phrase. It can mean:

I slept badly
The official version, the one everybody accepts without follow-up questions.

I have problems
But they do not fit into the conversation we are having.

I do not want to talk
Especially not now, and especially not here.

I am fed up
With this, that, and a few other things.

For three days…
…I have felt as if life ran me over in reverse.

But you say, ‘I'm tired,’ and nobody asks many questions. Perfect. Administrative problem resolved.

We have a very cinematic idea of pain

We think anyone who feels terrible must look terrible

The curious part is how surprised people are afterward. ‘I never imagined they were going through that.’

Of course.

We think somebody who is struggling has to cry. Stop functioning. Send some sufficiently obvious signal so the rest of us can identify it without making too much effort.

That would be marvelous.
We could even add lights.

But pain is rarely that considerate.

Sometimes a person who is completely broken laughs louder than everyone else. Makes jokes. Works as if nothing is wrong. Helps others. Asks how everybody else is doing. And when asked how they are, says fine.

Some people are extraordinarily good at pretending nothing is wrong.

Not necessarily because they want to deceive anyone. Sometimes they have functioned that way for so long they no longer feel as if they are pretending. They are used to it.

The building held up with popsicle sticks

The human ability to normalize what should never have become normal

Human beings have an impressive ability to adapt to situations that should never become normal.

Endure.
Adjust.
Justify.
Move that a little.
Swallow this.
Leave the other thing for later.

Until one day there is an entire building standing on popsicle sticks, and you still say:

—No, don't worry. I can handle it.

You probably can. The question is what it is costing you.

The body speaks too, and it is less diplomatic

Invisible wounds still leave signs

The skin changes. The eyes change. Sleep goes to hell. Exhaustion stops improving after rest. The person who used to talk for hours begins answering in two words. Somebody who always wanted to go out stops appearing. Someone else becomes irritated by everything.

And from outside, you can look at all that and think they are acting strange, have become unpleasant, or seem distant.

Maybe.

Not every mood change hides a Greek tragedy. Some days you are simply sick to death of humanity and want to turn off your phone. That exists too.

But other times, it is not that. Sometimes somebody has spent months trying to carry something far too heavy.

‘You're strong’ and other sentences disguised as compliments

What happens when somebody finally tries to speak

And it becomes especially fucked up when they try to talk and receive the usual answers.

‘Don't overthink it.’

‘You have to make an effort.’

‘Other people have it worse.’

‘You're strong.’

I love that last one.

You are completely broken, and they remind you that you are strong. Thank you so much. What a relief. Now, on top of the problem, you have to live up to the title.

Being strong sometimes becomes a sentence very cleverly disguised as praise.

Nobody looks too closely at the strong person. They can handle everything. Solve problems. Get back up. They have always made it through. So everybody rests easy while the strong person keeps carrying the weight.

Even strong people get tired.
That should not qualify as a scientific revelation either.

Certificate of suffering. Two photocopies. Notarized signature.

Our habit of demanding proof of pain

Some wounds are visible. A bruise. A scar. An arm in a cast.

Others cannot be pointed to with a finger. A word repeated for years. A humiliation. Fear of going home. Feeling inadequate every day. Losing somebody. Staying where you no longer want to be. Pretending something did not hurt because apparently there is a worldwide competition to decide which suffering deserves respect.

I do not know when we began demanding evidence from pain, as if somebody had to present documentation.

Certificate of suffering.
Two photocopies.
Notarized signature.

Otherwise, they are probably exaggerating.

Asking ‘Are you okay?’ is not enough

We all know the automatic answer

I am not saying you have to move through life analyzing every look from every friend, relative, and acquaintance. Understanding ourselves is complicated enough without becoming private investigators of everyone else's emotional stability.

But we could learn to look a little more carefully.

Especially because we all know the automatic answer.
Yes.
I'm fine.

We should listen to how they say it too. And above all, learn to stay for a moment after asking.

Some people do not speak the first time. Or the second. Maybe they fear being a burden. Do not know how to explain what is happening. Are used to receiving a quick solution. Or once tried to speak and regretted opening their mouth.

That is why some screams stay inside. Not because they do not want to come out. Because they could not find a way out.

And that is when they appear in the eyes.
In the body.
In the silences.
In that strange way of disappearing while still being physically present.

Maybe once it was you

And what truly helps is almost never a solution

The one who kept working when you wanted to lie down and disappear from the world for a while. The one who laughed at a gathering, then came home without wanting to speak to anyone. The one who answered ‘everything's fine’ because you did not have the energy to begin at the beginning.

We do not always need somebody to come and fix us. In fact, there are times when quick solutions make you want to tell everyone to fuck off.

Sometimes it is enough for somebody to see. Listen. Refuse to minimize it. Refuse to immediately turn what we feel into a life lesson.

Because not every shitty thing arrives to teach us something. Some things simply hurt. That is all.

That is why it is worth looking twice sometimes

Not to save anyone

That is why I keep believing the worst screams are the ones nobody hears. The ones that break nothing. Alarm no neighbors. Turn no heads.

The ones you learn to carry while still buying groceries, paying bills, and asking what is happening tomorrow.

Sometimes they are in the skin.
Sometimes in the eyes.
Sometimes in a silence that was not there before.

And sometimes they are perfectly hidden behind a person who looks fine.

That is why it is worth looking twice now and then. Not to save anybody. We are not superheroes, and we already have plenty of work trying to save ourselves.

Simply so we do not make the mistake of believing that because we cannot hear the scream, it does not exist.

Questions I Get All the Time

What people write after reading this

The worst screams make no sound. Sometimes we learn to live with them until everyone else believes the silence means it no longer hurts.