Why is it so hard to show our true selves to the people we love and trust the most?
From Philosophers’ Mail: “where we don’t ‘communicate’ a message, we still manage to get our points across, but just in toxic forms. As the expression goes, we ‘act out.’ Unable to pin down in a rational form what is ailing us, we may – for example – swear intemperately when someone asks us what is up. Or we go silent. Or we manically avoid subjects.”
“At the heart of the issue is the fact that we don’t only want our lovers to understand us. Certainly we want to be understood, but even more badly, we want to be loved – and when there appears to be an incompatibility, where we have no faith in our ability to get the tricky sides of us across, it is the truth that will be sacrificed – and yet will leak out in toxic symptoms nevertheless.
Why do we find communication so difficult?”