If you don't have anything NICE to say.... Triggers possible.

[Wife#2]

Is this something that is common and is it really harmful?

I'm sure I'm not the only one who grew up hearing, 'If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.' And, when in public, that is a good rule of thumb so that you don't embarrass anyone or yourself. BUT, the way it got misapplied and/or inconsistently applied in our lives has left us confused about when it's OK to speak up and when we should hush - for manners' sake.

The close cousin to that phrase is, 'Hold your tongue!'. The smarty-pants in me would, sometimes, actually grab my tongue and while still holding it, try to say, 'What now?' OK, I only did that once, the consequences weren't worth repeating.

My husband has a different twist on it, which I think is a little healthier, though not much. 'You can't be convicted for what you THINK, at last not YET.' This is his phrase for when we don't want to stifle DS8's natural emotion and reaction, but know it would be wiser to think angry words than to speak angry words one may regret.

Somehow, for quite a few of us, this set of phrases formed the basis for easily invalidating our thoughts and speech. I say thoughts because, most kids - like me back then at least - have the habit of , 'if it comes up, it comes out.' This can embarrass parents when kids are either repeating embarrassing words (Wonder where she learned THAT word?) or seeing something similar to a situation parents don't want discussed in public - and discussing it in public!

This may be why I developed a habit of running nearly everything I want to say through my head before speaking. Because of this, some people think that I'm crafting a lie. The hesitation may be as short as 15 seconds, but it still changes people's perception of me. Yet, I still feel a need to run it through my head before speaking.

Maybe this is normal, but in everyday conversation? At work? With my child?

One reason I love posting to a board like this is that I can take 2 hours to craft my answer if I want. I can begin, do something else for a while as I consider my word choices and I can delete part of a post or ALL of it.

Yes, sometimes, I still manage to offend by hitting POST without re-reading. That just allows my inner critic to get all happy telling me that it KNEW I should have read that again. NOW, I've gone and insulted someone and it was so completely preventable.

On some days when I'm feeling particularly low, I find it better if I don't post at all. In real life, I find myself clenching my jaw and saying the least I have to and still be polite to those talking with me. Still, and especially on those days, that pause is there.

Maybe this is something that's completely normal and just a  part of being in a large, multicultural world and society - better to remain silent than to offend. Yet it feels like some know how to filter out ugly things and others of us feel the need to filter out EVERY word, unsure of ourselves and the impact of our words on others. I'm having a strong feeling of this kind of day for me.

Gee - that did take a lot of words to say something that could have been wrapped up in - Did you ever feel invalidated because a parent misapplied, 'If you don't have anything NICE to say, don't say anything at all,' with the emphasis on the last part - just to keep you quiet?

Maybe my husband has a point when he says I beat around the mulberry bush until there's a 5-foot deep trench around the poor thing. I'm going to hush now.

[joyful]

Oh yes. I do the same thing, running everything I say through my head about a million times before I say it. Sometimes I continue to run it through my head after the conversation is over, like hearing echoes of it, telling myself what I should have said. Sometimes it is helpful just to not say something you'll regret, but for me it's more of an obstacle to saying what I really want/need to say. I always prefer written communication too. I'm always slow at coming up with responses and I'm pretty sure people think I'm just really dumb. It's hard.

[Three Roses]

This was a frequently repeated adage in my childhood, too.

Winston Churchill said, "Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen."

There's a balance to be struck in this, as in most everything. Speaking up for ourselves is a good thing to learn to do; it needn't be harsh though, and add to our burdens of guilt and embarrassment. And sometimes just removing ourselves from a situation or relationship is enough; it takes some insight to know when something will not be made better by our speaking up.

I've adopted a rule for myself - "It's ok to be angry, but do it in a functional way" - one that doesn't leave me picking up the pieces from an explosion! I can speak my mind without being hurtful, I've discovered.

We're not here to make everyone else feel better, although it's nice when we can honestly do so. I'm learning to throw off that old rule that tells me, never say anything "not nice". 

[Wife#2]

Thank you both for the responses! It does help me know I'm not alone. I also do the repeat the conversation and mull over how I could have said it better!

As to knowing when to hush, my H and I have gone around a little bit on this one. I have to actually SAY that I'm considering my words carefully. If I don't, H thinks I've ignored him. My telling him I have nothing positive to add at that time just makes him angry (or angrier). I do just need time to process what I've already said, what he said and figure out a way to say what I need to say in a constructive way.

I love how you described this, Three Roses. Hopefully, I can sit down with H and explain that I have a need to 'filter' conversations or I run the risk of mis-speaking. He can't read most printed material very well and even when his eyes worked, he hated getting letters from loved ones. So, I can't use the letter to 'have my say', all crafted out in advance. I can use it like a script, but it annoys H when I feel I have to read something to him that I should be able to just SAY to him.

We're just coming from different places and we are both trying to be patient with each other over our communication style differences. Some days, it's easy. Others, like over the weekend, it's more difficult. To communicate AND to be patient.

[woodsgnome]

This thread touches on several sore points for me, but one of the most grievous is the expectations people seem to project in conversation. Maybe I read this into how some people talk or respond in-person, but it seems like most are communicating via what I call sound-bites, as if they're performing in a TV show  and if you can't spit a reply back in 0.5 seconds max, forget it. I'm sometimes left in the lurch when I actually consider being asked "how are you?" and don't give the instant "fine" that's automatically expected. Oh well, it can at least be funny, in a Zen way, to see others recoil at this poor soul (me!) who doesn't follow, or know, the unwritten rules of sound-bite conversation.

Given that I come from an acting background (improv which thrives on quick wit and instant comeback), I'm probably not bad at sound-bites if I want to go there. But outside of the acting context, in 'real' life, I don't care to. In common conversation I prefer to actually converse, which includes pauses not tailored to the sound-bite social 'norms'. Maybe I should get a TV to figure it out? Or give in to multi-tasking? Hmm, my already strong hyper-vigilance serves me well in that regard, it seems.

And yes, there's also a heavy parental influence on my feelings about this. Once the father proclaimed "it's not what you say, it's how you say it"...in order so he could proceed to tell me what I meant  ...if ever there was an incentive to not be me...no wonder I became an actor; I often had to act in order to survive parents, teachers, siblings, and associated monsters who made me their rag doll as they dragged me around to their heart's content.

Entering adulthood, I thought it would be cool to be understood/listened to/respected/loved ('please?...can I dare ask that?') and time after time that notion of not being understood comes in and clutters my mind with all the old insecurities about what I'm saying and would anyone try to understand. I felt so unusual and still do. Those scars run deep.

But wait, I'm supposed to remember that "if you don't have anything nice to say..."; and pretty soon all conversation is scrambled in anxiety again about how to say it. Then I give in to old fears that maybe I'll never be understood, that maybe I'm not even a 'me' or who is too different to be allowed to have anything worth sharing; including nice things that I apparently don't have the sense to know about...or...



   

[Dee]

I was recently told that you cannot control your thoughts and feelings.  You can control your statements and actions.  It makes everything confusing for me.  I need to be assertive, but control my statements?  Maybe its that I don't need to let my bad feelings control what I say?  No idea...

[Three Roses]

Please don't feel we are telling you, "You need to be assertive." I would never presume I knew enough about anyone to tell them how to live their life.

But - if assertiveness is something you're working on, it may help to know what assertiveness is not. It is not aggressive, or violent; isn't rude, mean or spiteful; isn't in-your-face, loud, or finger-pointing. Assertiveness is simply not accepting something you're not okay with.

My favorite technique when I need to be assertive is the Broken Record routine. (For those of you not old enough to remember, when a record would skip, it would repeat the same segment over & over.) For instance, if you need to say no to something and they're not having it - "Yes thank you, I understand, but I'm not able to." Or, "No, I'm not interested." Over & over. After a while most people get sick of hearing it, and they'll move on. (Notice I didn't say, "Sorry, I'm not interested." You don't have to apologize for saying what is or is not acceptable to you.)

[Dee]

Three Roses,

I am working on assertiveness in therapy.  I have been conditioned to be extremely passive and carried it into adulthood.  It actually fit well with the military, I took orders extremely well.  I looked at what you said about the difference between being aggressive and assertive.  I then went back to my handout on assertiveness rights.  I needed the reminder to get it right again.  It is such a difficult concept for me I get confused.  Sometimes being assertive feels like I am being aggressive, when in fact I am not.  Thanks for helping me with that today.

[Three Roses]