On Communication

I’m usually an awful liar; anyone who’s ever played Mafia or BS with me can attest to it. I think I took the mantra of “honesty is the best policy” a little too seriously back when I was in elementary school because ever since, I’ve just been physically incapable of following through on most lies. Either my body language gives it away or I feel so guilty that I break down and tell the truth.

And yet, over the years, I’ve somehow become the master at lying about the answer to one very simple question: “How are you?”

“Good!”—that’s the answer I always emphatically exclaim whenever anyone asks, regardless of how “Good!” my day has actually been. I don’t know exactly why I do it. Until fairly recently, I didn’t even really recognize that that’s how I always respond. At some point in my life, I guess I stopped believing that “How are you?” could ever be a genuine question, and I conditioned myself to give the simplest, most pleasant answer.

To a certain extent, telling white lies about how you’re doing is normal. If you pass by someone on the street and they ask about your day without actually stopping or slowing down to hear the response, a quick answer like “Good!” is appropriate. Often, however, I think my reluctance to be honest with others about how I’m actually doing is symptomatic of a larger problem I struggle with. That problem is communication.

Take one look at my resume and you’d probably think I’m great at communication. After all, I speak three languages. I’m a writing tutor. I’m an EMT and I have difficult conversations with patients all the time about whether they need to go to the hospital. One semester, I was even the Communications Officer for my EMS organization; the word “communication” was literally in my title—and in every line of the job description.

When it comes to sharing neutral or positive thoughts, I am great at communication. But I don’t communicate very well about things that are bothering me. I tend to keep stress to myself, downplay problems, avoid confrontation, and lie by saying everything is always “Good!”

Part of it is a perfectionist thing. Growing up, I cared a lot about what other people thought of me. (Though I hate to admit it, I still care more about what other people think of me than I really should). I wanted other people to see me as perfect, which to me meant friendly, intelligent, and put-together. By definition, though, being perfect means being free of problems. I learned early on to keep problems to myself and to always behave in a peppy and agreeable manner in order to uphold a certain reputation.

Another part of it is shyness. I didn’t—and still don’t really—like having excess attention on me. I also lack confidence in myself sometimes. Being both afraid of speaking up and afraid of having problems makes admitting you have a problem to someone else all the more difficult. It makes telling someone directly that they aren’t treating you right or are creating stress in your life really hard to do, as well.

Sometimes, I question whether it’s worth sharing my problems with other people. Everyone faces their own challenges. Many people have gone through or are going through far worse things in their lives than I ever will. I start to ask myself, is my stress even real stress, or am I just being too sensitive? And even if my problems are valid, why compound other people’s stress by sharing my own? I know it’s fallacious thinking—after all, I’m always happy to help friends when they come to me with problems, so why wouldn’t my friends feel the same way when I reach out?—but nonetheless, such insecurities can also be a barrier to being more candid about how I’m doing.

Then, there’s always the consideration that, maybe if I don’t talk about my problems, they won’t seem as big. If I remain optimistic and downplay their importance, eventually they’ll lose their emotional valence and I’ll forget about them. Unfortunately, this kind of thinking doesn’t work for most problems.

The more I’ve begun to confront my struggle with communication, the more I’ve come to recognize just why sugar-coating problems can be toxic. For one, never telling anyone about your problems comes at the expense of getting help or hearing other people’s interpretations of a situation. Moreover, something that starts off as a small problem can grow to unmanageable proportions if you don’t try to solve it or at least better understand it by talking about it openly. When a problem is interpersonal, holding it in does a disservice to both you, because you continue to suffer, and the other person, because they aren’t given the opportunity to learn and grow from the situation. Not to mention, it’s very difficult to form a genuine connection with another person when you only show them the side of yourself that you believe is perfect.

Becoming a better communicator doesn’t happen overnight, but I’m taking small steps to improve. I’ve started by going back to what alerted me to the problem in the first place: the fact that I almost never answer “How are you?” truthfully. In the past semester or so, I’ve added more adjectives to my repertoire of responses. Sometimes my day is “long” or “not bad” or “kind of stressful” (and other times, my day is more than just “Good!”—it’s “relaxing,” “fun,” “unexpectedly great”—because being a better communicator and understanding yourself better also means being more open about why the good things in your life are so pleasant).

Additionally, I challenge myself to give a more complete account of my day, the good and the bad, to at least one person every day. I’ve noticed that once I’m able to let it all out to one individual, I feel more comfortable sharing the less glamorous parts of my day to other people. It’s like with each subsequent iteration, the words don’t feel as foreign anymore.

Writing about my problems, such as in this blog, has been similarly helpful. Of course, writing is never a substitute for communicating out loud and in person. In life, you can’t always edit your thoughts a million times until you’ve picked the best words and most coherent structure. But I do find that once I’ve written about something—whether or not it’s for a larger audience—it’s then a bit easier to talk about it out loud to someone else.

Lastly, I’ve found it helpful to seek out mentors. Communicating your problems doesn’t have to mean sharing them with everyone and anyone who will listen. Some people are really good at listening to my worries about school, while other people are more helpful when it comes to social situations or work drama or family stress. Being honest with these people about the parts of my life they’re best at giving advice on is a strong first step in being generally more open about how I’m doing.

I know I’m not alone when it comes to holding my feelings in. In fact, it’s actually such a big problem, especially among millennials, that there’s even a term for it: duck syndrome. The name comes from the idea that ducks appear calm and collected above the water, but underneath, they have to paddle frantically with their legs to stay afloat and keep moving. I’m working on combating my own duck syndrome, one “How are you?” at a time.

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This post is the third installation of a three-part series on writing and communication. Part I can be found here and part II, here.