Sometimes we don’t even realize that our need to explain ourselves can actually hurt us.
Usually, we see explaining as something positive.
We associate it with childhood. With school and teachers.
With something basic that helps us understand the world around us correctly.
Very few people think about how the impulse to explain yourself one more time can become harmful.
For example, when that impulse turns into explaining yourself every single day.
Exhausting. Unnecessary.
And nobody actually needs it.
Because sometimes people don’t want to hear.
They want to listen.
Or maybe they want everyone else to listen too.
As if it were a movie.
Episode 234. Season 26.
A show everyone is already tired of, but they keep watching anyway.
Because people who like to listen but don’t actually hear usually aren’t thinking.
They’re consuming.
Sometimes people deliberately create facades.
A facade doesn’t always need a reason.
We usually think we create them for protection.
But sometimes a facade exists because there is trauma underneath it.
Because we don’t want everyone to see who we really are.
It’s not protection.
It’s avoidance.
A truly strong person doesn’t need a facade.
Sometimes people deliberately create situations that make us want to explain ourselves,
hoping that this time they will finally understand us correctly.
And sometimes it works.
But sometimes it simply cannot work.
Because from the beginning, nobody intended to understand us.
Sometimes people just need noise and nothing else.
Because where there is noise, nobody stops to consider that there might be another side to the story.
It’s a basic form of emotional manipulation, and it is used everywhere.
On television. In the press. On social media.
And in real life too, by people who desperately want to cast themselves as the star.
Sometimes, while trying to explain yourself, you don’t even realize that you’ve become the star of someone else’s story.
And by explaining yourself, you are only adding fuel to a fire you never started.
There is a moment in healing when you realize that explaining yourself is not always communication.
Sometimes, it is a reaction.
I used to explain myself a lot.
I wanted people to understand that it wasn’t me.
That I wasn’t like that.
That I hadn’t meant what they thought I meant.
That there was a reason I reacted the way I did.
At first, I thought that if I explained enough, eventually the other person would see the difference between who I actually was and the person they had decided I was.
But there was a problem.
Some people had already made up their minds.
And every explanation I gave them became something else they could use against me.
I was trying to defend myself.
They were collecting evidence.
I was trying to correct the story.
They were using my reaction as proof of the story they had already created.
And this is where things can become especially confusing when you’ve experienced reactive abuse.
You react to something that has been happening to you,
and suddenly your reaction becomes the entire story.
Nobody asks what happened before it.
Nobody asks what led to it.
They just point at your reaction and say:
“See? This is who you are.”
So you explain again.
You defend.
You try to prove that you’re not the person they say you are.
And without realizing it, you participate in making their version of the story real.
Not because it was true.
But because you kept entering the conversation.
You kept responding to the accusation.
You kept trying to change someone’s perception of you.
I understand this differently now.
I don’t have to convince someone who has already decided who I am.
If someone wants to misunderstand me,
I cannot force them to understand me correctly.
If someone has already created a version of me in their head,
I don’t have to climb inside that version and start rearranging the furniture.
I can simply leave it there.
Because the strange thing about explaining yourself to people who have already decided who you are is that the explanation rarely gives you freedom.
It keeps you connected.
You keep checking what they think.
Stop for a moment and ask yourself:
What does it actually mean to you what complete strangers think about you?
Maybe they think whatever is convenient for them.
You cannot be liked by everyone.
Maybe they simply don’t like you.
In that case, they still won’t like you even if you explain yourself one more time.
You keep wondering whether they finally understand.
But if they keep the story alive, then either they didn’t understand anything at all, or they are consciously choosing to keep it going.
You keep rewriting your words.
You keep trying to find the perfect explanation that will finally make them see you differently.
And suddenly, their opinion has become a job.
A job you gave them yourself.
There was a time when I thought not responding meant I was weak.
Now I understand that sometimes not responding is the only way to stop participating in a story that was never mine.
We don’t need to prove that we are not angry.
Even if we are angry, we have the right to be.
We have the right to feel any emotion we feel, because we are human.
We don’t need to prove that we are not jealous.
We don’t need to prove that we are not obsessed.
When we genuinely don’t care, we simply don’t give it a reaction.
We don’t need to prove that we are not the person someone decided we are.
We cannot be responsible for what another person imagines in their head.
We simply need to understand:
I know who I am.
And that’s enough.
There is also something uncomfortable about realizing how much power we give other people when we constantly react to them.
Every time I rushed to explain myself, I was giving their interpretation of me importance.
I was saying:
“This needs to be corrected.”
“This needs my attention.”
“This person’s opinion needs an answer.”
But what if it doesn’t?
What if someone can believe something completely wrong about you and you can simply let them?
What if you don’t have to correct every lie?
What if you don’t have to defend every misunderstanding?
What if you don’t have to make your innocence visible to someone who is committed to seeing you as guilty?
That doesn’t mean you accept their version of you.
It means you stop participating in it.
And there is a huge difference.
Sometimes silence isn’t surrender.
Sometimes silence is refusing to enter the courtroom.
You don’t have to stand there explaining yourself to a judge who already decided the verdict.
You can walk away.
And the most interesting thing happens when you do.
The story loses its energy.
Because a story needs participation.
It needs your attention.
It needs your reaction.
It needs you to keep checking what was said, what they meant, and what you should say next.
But when you stop responding, something changes.
Not necessarily in them.
In you.
You discover that you can see something and not react.
It’s that simple.
When you learn not to get caught on emotional hooks, you sometimes realize that it wasn’t really you choosing the response.
It was your trauma responding for you.
With every situation, you can try slowing down before you react.
Even for a second.
Then, next time, one second longer.
Eventually, a question appears:
Do I actually want to say or do this, or is this just an impulse in response to what someone said or did to me?
Pauses always work.
We just tend to underestimate them.
That’s actually how I helped my daughter stop weighing herself several times a day.
I simply took the batteries out of all the scales in the house.
Every time, she got upset for one second less.
And eventually, she didn’t need the scales anymore.
Maybe you’ll realize that you can hear something and not defend yourself.
You can be misunderstood and still know yourself.
You can watch someone tell a story about you and not feel responsible for correcting every sentence.
And eventually you realize:
I don’t need to make their version of me disappear.
I only need to stop living inside it.
Because they can create the facade.
But living inside it is our responsibility.
Maybe that’s what freedom actually looks like.
Not everyone understanding you.
Not everyone seeing the truth.
Not everyone admitting what they did.
Not everyone changing their opinion.
And that’s okay.
The important thing is that you know who you are.
Just you, quietly deciding:
You can believe whatever you want about me.
But you don’t get to decide who I am.
And I don’t have to explain myself anymore.
Because I have a life to live that is much more interesting than defending myself in someone else’s story.
I often compare this process to Don Quixote fighting windmills.
The windmills won’t stop turning as long as the wind keeps blowing.
So what’s the point of fighting them if you’re only going to lose your own energy?
Maybe sometimes the strongest thing we can do is simply put down the sword.
Walk away from the windmill.
And keep living.
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
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