Am I Even Making Sense?
On my fear of inarticulateness
1
One thing I dislike about myself is my tendency to fail at articulating my thoughts. This isn’t to say I’m incapable of it. I know myself well enough to recognize I have a decent command of language.
But I have fallen short of expressing myself often enough to notice.
In moments when I find my words lacking, it seems my mind is caught in suspension. I am floating in the air, locked into the space I occupy. The atoms making up my person stop vibrating. The breath in my lungs turns to ice, and I cannot exhale.
It’s an unpleasant feeling, when you get the urge to communicate but are unable to adequately do so. When you can’t find the right words, then resort to using the next best ones to see if they still hit the mark.
You become dissatisfied, knowing the substitute vocabulary collapses.
2
Inarticulateness is comparable to tracing a drawing through a thick sheet of paper. Regardless of how hard you push the pencil, your mimesis fails.
You draw squiggly lines where there shouldn’t be, shade the wrong spots, and forget to recreate parts of the original.
Inarticulateness also reminds me of dreaming: I’m watching myself from within myself. Relegated to the role of spectator, I view my dream-life through the window of my eyes, with no control of my body.
When I wish to talk, everything is on the tip of my tongue. No matter how much I force it, I can’t speak. My dream-world avatar either blurts out incoherent fragments, or says nothing.
3
A crucial element of conversation is understanding what’s being communicated: on the first level, the words said; second, the context of ideas exchanged; third, the meaning invoked by the words.
In my self-consciousness, I try my best to be understood. I pay attention to the other person’s facial expressions to gauge how well they comprehend me. To see if they understand me in the manner I desire.
Whenever I glimpse a raised eyebrow or slanted pout, panic pulls the rug from under my feet. Am I making sense? my inner voice asks, as I rapidly fire out follow-up phrases to clarify what I’m saying.
4
Maybe it’s my fear of having to argue that fuels my drive to be understood. I’m not the confrontational sort. Getting into a tiff leaves me tongue-tied. Debating requires quick thought and speech, and I frequently stumble under pressure.
Perhaps insecurity is the root of my problems. I hate making mistakes because I don’t want to project weakness. I hope to avoid messing up because I’m scared to look stupid.
I know this form of perfectionism is a double-edged sword. Because I’m caught up in how well or poorly I’m communicating, I’m not fully present.
Because I’m preoccupied with my inhibitions, I get in my own way, blocking the roads connecting my heart and my lips.
Besides, I’ll never pin down who I really am anyway. Not even I can grasp the ever-shifting sands of my soul. How can I expect others to do the same, when the grains slip out between my own fingers?
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Thanks for being vulnerable enough to show an inner battle you face. I've experienced something similar. I found myself replaying certain conversations and mentally bonking my head for how crudely I spun certain sentences together. "Should have said ___ instead.. Why did I not start with __?" It's a dangerous thing, that Negative Nancy inner voice. But I've been trying to be kinder to myself, learned to talk to "Nancy" the past few years. I'm mindful that despite my fairly decent command of english, I know I'm still code-switching. Patience, it turns out, is a must when you practice self-compassion.
You've hit the nail on the head. I find that my fear of making mistakes is tied to people's perception of me, of my worth. The moment I became cognizant of that, I felt free (because then it meant I had to do the inner work).