I used to believe that being silenced was obvious.
That it arrived loudly. That it looked like overt punishment or public shaming. That you would know immediately what was happening and why. I did not understand how subtle it could be, or how disorienting it feels when it happens calmly and without explanation.
The first time I noticed it, I questioned myself.
I had shared something personal, not provocative, not inflammatory. It was my lived experience, offered without accusation on the community of single people’s group on a social media platform. I expected curiosity or, at the very least, neutrality. What followed instead was a quiet shift in tone that I could not immediately name.
Assumptions appeared where questions could have been asked. Certainty replaced curiosity. My intent was rewritten publicly, not through dialogue, but through interpretation layered on top of what I had actually said.
That alone was unsettling.
What deepened the impact was what came next. When I responded, I did not escalate. I clarified. I explained. I stayed calm and factual. I trusted that context would restore balance.
Instead, my ability to communicate was restricted.
There was no warning. No clear reason. No invitation to resolve what had occurred. The conversation continued without me, while my voice was removed from it.
That moment carries a particular kind of shock.
Not because it is dramatic, but because it removes your orientation. You are left trying to understand what rule you broke, what line you crossed, what you failed to anticipate. Silence, when imposed without explanation, creates confusion rather than resolution.
What I felt most strongly was not anger. It was vulnerability.
To have your voice limited while others are free to define, attack and bully you through their hate pointed comments on a social media platform creates a sense of exposure that is difficult to articulate. You are present, but unable to participate. Visible, but unable to respond. That imbalance affects the nervous system in ways that linger long after the moment itself has passed.
What made this especially painful was the realisation that calmness does not always protect you. That careful language does not guarantee fairness. That restraint is not always recognised as good faith.
Silencing does not always come from hostility. Sometimes it comes from systems that prioritise order over understanding, containment over care. In those systems, reducing noise matters more than resolving harm.
The impact of that kind of silencing is cumulative. You begin to hesitate before speaking. You weigh your words more heavily. You wonder whether sharing your experience is worth the risk of being misunderstood again.
That hesitation is not weakness.
It is the nervous system learning from experience.
What helped me recover from that moment was not confrontation or explanation. It was reframing what had happened. I stopped asking why I had been silenced and started asking what the response revealed about the group on the social media platform itself.
A space/ platform that cannot tolerate calm truth is not a safe space for honesty.
That realisation restored something important. It returned agency to me. I was no longer trying to make sense of my own behaviour in isolation. I was able to see the broader context in which it occurred.
If you have ever been silenced without explanation, especially after speaking or posting carefully and in good faith, I want you to hear this.
What you experienced does not need to be dramatic to be real.
The confusion you felt was not over sensitivity. It was a natural response to having your voice removed while meaning was still being made about you.
And learning to trust yourself again after that does not require you to harden or withdraw.
It requires you to recognise that silence, when imposed, says more about the system than it ever could about you.
Copyright © 2026 Lynette Diehm.
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced without written permission of the author.
