Stop Keeping Yourself to Yourself

The importance of letting people in

I’m reading On Writing by Stephen King, and one of the things that keeps coming up is this phrase, “Keeping yourself to yourself.” He uses that phrase to describe his mom’s inability to talk about herself. Anytime she was going through something she kept it to herself to the point where she had cancer and didn’t talk to anyone until it was beyond treatment. He also uses the phrase when talking about concealing his own issues with alcohol and drugs. 

Many of us think the best thing we can do for other people is to keep ourselves to ourselves. We do this because:

• We don’t want to be pitied. We don’t want people constantly checking in and asking us a bunch of questions about how we’re doing. 

• We don’t know how to talk about ourselves. Therapy is awkward for so many of us because it’s the first time we’re encouraged to talk about ourselves for nearly an hour at a time. 

• We don’t want to come across as self-centered or make everything about us. 

• We have gotten used to pretending and wearing a mask that says we’re ok.  

• We think people have enough going on and we don’t want to give them something else to worry about. 

My mother does this thing where she tells me about things at the very last minute. She’ll tell me she’s going into the hospital for an outpatient procedure with barely 24 hours’ notice and say, “Don’t worry about it. It’s not a big deal.” I have had to tell her a few times that I need her to tell me when things are happening at least a few days in advance so I can have time to mentally prepare and decide if this is a situation where I need to make travel plans so I can be present. I know my mother doesn’t tell me what’s happening because she doesn’t want me to worry, but we can’t tell people how to pick their worries. 

Sometimes we convince ourselves that people don’t care about us when in reality we’ve been withholding how we feel for so long that they think we’re ok. This is not to say we need to tell everybody everything. We do need to discern when to be honest. We need to determine which spaces and relationships support us opening up. Once we have figured out who we share things with, we can start small by:

• Being honest with people about how we feel 

The other day a friend of mine called and asked me how I was doing and I told her I was feeling funky. I didn’t get into why. It was just enough to tell her the truth of how I was doing. We can tell people how we feel without having to explore it. 

• Letting people know that sharing is hard 

We can let the people in our lives know that while we don’t want to keep things from them we’ve grown accustomed to keeping things to ourselves. 

• Talking to a therapist or joining a support group 

It may be easier to explore sharing your feelings with people you don’t know before you start disclosing that information to people you’re close to. 

When we share how we’re feeling with people, it shouldn’t be with the expectation that they will resolve it. A lot of what we’re feeling may not be able to be resolved, at least not immediately, but it can be related to. 

While people may not be able to take away our pain, they can sit with us in it. They can validate us and check on us. Letting people in and allowing ourselves to be cared for can ease at least a little of what we’re carrying. 

Journal Prompt

What have you been keeping to yourself that it would be helpful to share with someone?

A Few Things That Caught My Attention This Week

• How to Be Less Busy and More Happy, by Arthur C. Brooks in The Atlantic. 

• When It’s Time for an Aging Driver to Hit the Brakes, by Catherine Pearson in The New York Times. 

• Why Your Big Sister Resents You, by Catherine Pearson in The New York Times. 

• Kendra Gets Personal on The Lazy Genius podcast. You can listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you stream podcasts.