unmentionables
I’ve always thought it a little strange that we as a culture are conditioned to believe that certain topics are taboo.
Unmentionables, if you will.
I’m not sure who decided what made The List. Perhaps it was the same unmentionable “they” who are so often referred to in cultural lore:
“They say people hide razor blades in caramel apples.”
“They say you shouldn’t swim within thirty minutes after you eat.”
“They say the average person swallows eight spiders a year while sleeping.”
Pure poppycock, of course. But such things have been passed on for so long now that they feel true; and so we continue to live in their shadow, crouching in corners from boogeymen of our own making.
It seems much the same process accounts for what “should” or “should not” be spoken about with others:
Don’t get into it with politics.
You might come up against someone who doesn’t see the world the way you do, and that would surely lead to fisticuffs. Worse still, someone may calmly and rationally introduce an idea you hadn’t considered before, challenging your dyed-in-the-wool stance; and, frankly, that kind of thinking could only be catastrophic. Conversing, after all, is about debating and being right. And your favorite news station will always tell you that you’re right. So play it safe.
Don’t breathe a word about your family struggles.
It’s a real drag for everyone else (whose relationships are perpetual bliss) to have to hear about it. Seeking help or input is a sign of weakness; better to seem strong in your weakness than to show your weakness and potentially gain strength. Just bite your tongue, tough it out and hope for the best.
Don’t talk about aging or dying, yours or anyone else’s.
It’s sad and it’ll bring people down. Yes, we will all eventually arrive there. Perhaps, even now, you’re caring for declining parents and facing that inevitable goodbye. But talking about it—big no-no. Regardless of your thoughts and feelings and worries and wonderings, it’s best to keep them to yourself and maintain the unspoken illusion that you’re at perfect peace with it all—as if it’s nothing more than walking off into the beautiful golden sunset, just like in the movies.
This list of unmentionables could go on and on.
It seems a shame that we’ve bought into this notion that we are such frail beings that we’d surely turn to dust if we stirred up much beyond pleasantries and platitudes. That we’ve been lulled into the mundane rhythm of talking about little more than the weather or the big game or what we thought of the latest film.
That said, ironically, I’m going to tell you what I thought of the latest film.
It was A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, in which Tom Hanks brings to vibrant life the true story of Mister Rogers and his relentless empathy for a struggling young journalist. It truly is a beautiful film. But that beauty transcends “the story,” underscoring the power of vulnerability, the magic of a thoughtful question and the wisdom of giving people the space to feel what they feel.
Without giving away too much, there is one point where members of a family fall into an awkward silence when one of them acknowledges aloud his own serious illness. Fred Rogers is in their company. Of note, he allows that silence to remain unbroken for quite a while, aware that he is a guest who is merely visiting this deeply personal moment. His eyes move around the circle, stopping on each person there. Most quickly look down or away. One however meets his gaze with glassy eyes, a quirk of mouth seeming to convey, Sorry you got stuck in the middle of this.
Eventually, Mister Rogers draws in a slow breath, smiles, then speaks with quiet assurance about the “taboo” reality they are all facing together:
“This is human.” Downcast eyes flick toward him, hungry for hope, as he continues. “If it’s human, it’s mentionable. And anything mentionable is manageable.”
Then, as if to be sure they understand him, he repeats the last part once more…
“Anything mentionable is manageable.”
And with those words, the heavy chokehold breaks.
Please understand, I’m not in any way against friendly chit-chat. By all means, exclaim what a lovely day it is when the sun is shining. Root, root, root for the home team. Inquire about the holidays or weekend plans. I do. And I enjoy it.
Nor am I saying that we should let concerns or struggles or unpleasantness consume our thoughts or conversations. Sometimes, in fact, the healthiest thing might even be to set them aside for a time.
I’m simply suggesting, along with Mister Rogers, that we ought not continue to subscribe to this dodgy notion of “unmentionables”—keeping our mouths sealed for fear of spiders in the night.
A fear-driven life is a terribly small one indeed.
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Write about certain subjects and the comments go quiet…and yet these are often the very topics we need to discuss and bring them out into the open. For anyone going through hell, being able to talk about it, in an atmosphere of trust and openness, sharing experiences, can be the one thing that is needed to give a bit of breathing space to tackle the next step.
I know how intimately acquainted with this you’ve had to be at times, Sue, and so I know the place your words come from. Well said!
Talking… or writing… about these ‘unmentionable’ subjects is a necessary safety valve. And much comfort can be derived from sharing the journey.
The uncomfortable silence is real. I have had my own health struggles over the past years. In my own style, I point out the absurdity of not talking about them. I share my struggles because they are real and present. I talk about them in the hope that it makes the dialogue real for others so they feel like they can talk about what is on their minds too.
The human being is capable of empathy. That is one of our greatest gifts. To put our selves in the shoes of another is a gift and a power that is almost supernatural. And yet, people are afraid to use that gift. It’s a shame too. Helping others should always be our first step. Most of time that helping is really just taking the time to listen and understand.
-B
Welcome, Bryan! And thanks for taking the time to share where you’ve been and what you’ve learned. Comments like yours often leave me wishing I could somehow get people to “have to” read them as an integral part of the post. I certainly see them this way. In my first book, The Best Advice So Far, I devote an entire chapter to helping people understand how to talk about grief, illness or struggles in simple but effective ways. One thing I say there echoes your words here: “You know it’s happening. They know it’s happening. So pretending it’s not happening is what creates that awkwardness, not the reality itself.” I believe simply simply acknowledging, asking “Would you like to talk about it?” and then simply listening or respecting the decline are, as you say, “almost supernatural.”
With that in mind… how is your health currently, Bryan? (I’ll email you, to give you the option of replying publicly or privately if you’d like.)
What a “beautiful” post, Erik. I can’t wait to see this movie. I heard so much about it and your post just makes me want to see it more.
As a counselor, I learned to hear the “unmentionables” and saw the huge release of stress in my clients when they could share their deepest thoughts and feelings without the world falling apart. It was a privilege to be the listener, strong enough to hold the engulfing emotions.
I’m much less gracious about politics! Ha ha. There are definitely times when I need to keep my mouth shut and consider my opinion unmentionable.
Yes, Diana, it is a privilege to be trusted enough to be a listener. For me, I fill this place so often, however, that I always seem to be caught off-guard when someone else offers to be the listener to my own “unmentionables.” I’ve become much better over the years at allowing that “seat of privilege” to pass to someone else as needed.
Regarding politics, we do live in a particular era where that is concerned, don’t we? I wanted to include that one just to perhaps cause a few people to think, How have we arrived at this place where disagreement really could and does lead to brawls and worse? Once upon a time, two gentlemen could sit in the park over a game of chess and talk calmly about differing views on politics without upending things. So I know it’s possible; however, we seem to have a long way to go to return to such civility and strength of character in the face of disagreement.
Thanks as always for your thoughtful input. 🙂
“We don’t talk about it” was the governing social mantra of every family (including my own) I grew up with in my Irish Catholic Bronx neighborhood! Someone’s a drunk? We don’t talk about it. The family car got repossessed? We don’t talk about it. The phone service has been inexplicably cut off (because the bill went unpaid again)? We don’t talk about it. I know only too well, Erik, about life’s little “unmentionables”!
It’s probably the reason I am for the most part an open book with people. I’m happy to openly discuss unpleasant circumstances (past or present), uncomfortable feelings (not saying Everything’s fine when it isn’t), and unflattering personal stories (I’ve shared many on my blog). This is certainly a reaction — both conscious and unconscious, to different degrees — to the way I was brought up; it’s designed as a way to let people know that I’m not afraid to “go there,” and they shouldn’t be afraid to do the same around me, either. By demonstrating my own willingness to express feelings and anecdotes deemed “inappropriate for polite company,” I open the door for others to do likewise if they wish (or not if they don’t). Perhaps sometimes that’s overbearing or off-putting — I’ll cop to that (in the spirit of radical forthrightness) — but I like to foster in my own life an atmosphere of emotional candor, because the alternative seems pointless at best and destructive at worst. There’s catharsis in confronting the things we all feel but have been conditioned to conceal from one another.
Yours is another comment I wish I could make “required reading” along with this post, Sean. It helps flesh out the topic beautifully.
My Independent Fundamentalist Baptist upbringing rivals your Irish Catholic. (At least you had community outside the four walls of the church.) No one talked about anything real, because everyone felt pressured to pretend to be the model of perfection. It seems to me that this flew in the face of the very teachings and point of the whole thing (after all, who needs “salvation” if they’re already perfect)? The stories I could tell. Don’t talk about sex beyond “it’s evil”; and then, when someone gets pregnant as a teen, ostracize them so other people don’t ask questions. Counseling was literally decried as a tool of Satan.
And yet… like you, because of that upbringing, I’ve responded by having utter clarity on the fact that such a system doesn’t work for anything good. And I’ve found my life’s calling in sharing with others the joy of being seen and heard. One of the first questions I’ll ask someone who is visibly uncomfortable at the idea of sharing something they’ve been told is unmentionable is this: “What do you imagine is the absolute worst that could happen if you talk about this?” And I still find it staggering the level of fear people are living in most of the time, as evidenced by their tellings of these worst-case scenarios in their minds. What a beautiful thing, then, to also see the enormous weight that lifts when they find that these stories they’ve believed for so long simply aren’t true. The world doesn’t end. It begins anew.
I love this post. Over the past two years, my marriage was failing and ultimately ended in divorce. I kept very quiet about it for some time. Somewhere along the line, friends ended up in a very similar situation. One of them has been a lifelong friend and I reached out to her. I spoke very freely with her. Hoping to help prevent her from feeling the same way that I’d felt for months. With a little luck, keep her from making some of the same mistakes that I did. It was very freeing for me and so, I continued being more open about many issues. I started being much more direct with my ex about things that she and I never discussed. I often wonder if our marriage would’ve survived if we’d been so open 15 years ago. Anyhow, it became clear to me that I needed to do this with more things from my past. I know I can’t change the world but, I want to see people be more open and I know that I have to start with myself. Forgive my rambling but, there are so many lessons that we could be learning from others if only we had some of their knowledge. Just a few days ago, my 14 year old mentioned his great uncle having a beer at 10 am. He thought it was pretty amusing that his 68 year uncle could still handle drinking like that. My ex and I agreed that we needed to explain that his great uncle is an alcoholic who has been in and out of rehab for many years. In fact, there is alcoholism all over both of our families. Personally, I have to be careful or I could easily fall into that pattern. Maybe with us (my ex and I) being so open about something that was kept from us, we will be able to keep our kids from the same struggles. Where might this world be if we respectfully discussed religion, politics, sexuality, racism, and so many other things? I believe we’d would be more educated and therefore more accepting. Idealistic, I know. Still something to strive for. 🙂
Hi, John. I appreciate that your response to a post about exploring openness was to do just that.
One thing I’m realizing more and more is that some people truly don’t want to be more educated or accepting. Some enjoy staying right where they are (especially when where they are offers a real or perceived advantage over others). But many are tired of living at odds with the world and wholly “unto themselves”; and I, like you, am continually seeking for ways to reach those people with encouragement to try something new. Each of us is changing the world by our very existence, for good or ill. Every interaction we have changes something. So don’t underestimate the power of one person’s influence and the domino effect that can have.