Before the Silence: Remembering the Girl Who Spoke Too Loudly

Some days, I miss her—the girl I used to be before the silence.

She was loud, not in the way that annoyed, but in the way that filled rooms. Her laughter cracked open quiet mornings. Her opinions came unfiltered, often too raw for people used to soft-spoken compliance. She asked too many questions, challenged too many rules, loved too loudly, cried too openly. She didn’t know shame the way she would later come to know it. She didn’t flinch when she said the wrong thing or apologized for her existence when she hadn’t done anything wrong.

She was wild, not reckless. Free, not rebellious. But none of that mattered once they decided she was “too much.”


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It starts young, doesn’t it?

The first time someone told me to lower my voice, I was seven. We were at a family gathering, and I was explaining something—probably about space or sharks or whatever held my obsessive little heart that month. I was excited. I was passionate.

“Shh, you don’t need to speak so loud,” my aunt said, frowning like my joy was inconvenient.

I didn’t know it then, but that was the first stitch in a thread of silence that would wrap tighter every year.

At nine, I was told I was “too opinionated.”
At twelve, “too sensitive.”
At fifteen, “too intense.”
At seventeen, “too emotional.”
At twenty, “too much.”

Each time, a little more of me got swallowed.


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The world teaches girls to shrink in such subtle ways. It's in the way we’re praised for being polite instead of passionate. It’s in the way we’re told to “read the room” instead of reading our own hearts. It's in the way being quiet is equated with being mature.

So I learned. I studied silence like a survival skill. Smiled when I wanted to scream. Nodded when I disagreed. Said “I’m fine” even when my chest burned from the weight of unspoken words. I laughed at jokes that weren’t funny and swallowed truths like poison.

I dimmed.

And people praised me for it.

“She’s so mature now.”
“She’s finally learned her place.”
“She’s not so difficult anymore.”

I wasn’t difficult. I was disappearing.


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But here's the thing about silence: it’s never neutral. It's not peace when it's forced. It doesn't heal when it's imposed. It's not safety if it's soaked in shame.

I began to forget the sound of my own voice. Not just the literal voice, but the deeper one—the voice of my instincts, my intuition, my hunger, my truth. I forgot how to trust her.

And then one day, I missed her. That girl. That messy, loud, bright, uncensored version of me. The one who used to say what she meant and meant what she said. The one who cried in front of people and didn’t feel broken by it. The one who said “no” without explaining herself and “yes” without guilt.

I missed her so deeply it hurt.


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The journey back to her wasn’t sudden. It wasn’t cinematic. It came in small moments.

It came when I finally said, “I don’t agree,” in a conversation where silence would’ve been easier.
It came when I laughed too loud in a quiet café and didn’t apologize.
It came when I left relationships that thrived on my silence.
It came when I wrote things I wasn’t sure people would approve of—and published them anyway.

It came when I started listening to that inner voice that had been whispering all along: You don’t have to be small to be safe. You don’t have to be silent to be loved.


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Some days, I still hesitate. The old habits don’t disappear overnight. I still second-guess my tone in emails. I still replay conversations in my head wondering if I sounded “too much.” I still flinch when someone frowns as I speak my mind.

But now, I catch myself. I breathe. I choose differently.

Because I am learning—not just to speak—but to take up space.
To stop apologizing for the space I already occupy.
To remember that the world doesn’t need another quiet woman—it needs an honest one.


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So no, I’m not trying to be who I was before they taught me to be quiet. I’m trying to be the version of her that grew wiser without growing smaller.

I still miss her sometimes. But more than that, I’m building a life where she can exist again—not as a memory, but as a presence.

Loud. Unapologetic. Whole.


To every woman who was taught to be less: May you remember the sound of your own voice. And may you use it—not just for yourself, but for all the little girls still being told to sit down and stay quiet.

Thank you so much for reading this 🥰.