the burden to be well-spoken

some people grow up believing their survival depends on how well they speak. not just whether they can communicate, but whether they can do so in a way that anticipates judgment, edits emotional rawness into social grace, and translates discomfort into a form others can safely consume. for them, speech isn’t just a tool — it’s armor. they learn that the only acceptable way to feel is through language, and the only acceptable language is the one others find impressive. being well-spoken becomes less about being expressive and more about being legible. legibility, here, is the currency. and like all currencies, it’s unequally distributed. this burden is especially sharp for people who grow up in environments where being misunderstood isn’t just frustrating — it’s dangerous. immigrants, children of immigrants, people of color, neurodivergent folks, anyone raised in a house or culture where language carried the weight of survival. they learn how to self-translate. how to code-switch. how to polish. they learn that the first draft of any feeling isn’t the one you share. so what you end up with is this peculiar condition: people who are lauded for their clarity, envied for their eloquence, and yet privately feel like strangers to their own inner world. they know how to explain things — especially things that hurt. they know how to reframe struggle as insight. they can dress pain in perfect language and call it reflection. but sometimes, that fluency conceals the fact that the feeling hasn’t even been felt yet. it’s just been processed into words. and because others see the words, they assume healing has happened.

the danger is that fluency becomes performance. not always disingenuous, not always curated — but protective. you say what will keep you safe. what will keep you liked. what will keep you in rooms where people confuse articulation for stability. there’s a reason we’re drawn to people who “say things so well.” clarity is comforting. it makes the world feel knowable. it gives us a sense of control over the chaos. but some truths can’t be made clean. some feelings are not yet ready for coherence. we forget that speech isn’t always catharsis. sometimes it’s containment. the words become a holding pattern. a way to keep the feeling from swallowing you. and so many people live in this contradiction: they speak beautifully and still feel unseen. they explain things perfectly and still feel misunderstood. they perform emotional intelligence and still feel disconnected from themselves. in this way, fluency becomes a kind of mask — one that is mistaken for self-awareness but often reveals how deeply someone fears being misunderstood.

and then there’s the cultural layer. our society rewards those who can phrase things well. resumes, interviews, applications, therapy sessions, even romantic relationships — so much hinges on one’s ability to explain themselves in a way that sounds clear, thoughtful, and composed. but language is shaped by access. by privilege. by whether you were taught how to speak in systems that reward structure and linearity. by whether your emotions were allowed to exist without being turned into a performance. children raised in homes where emotional chaos was punished or ignored often learn to become emotionally articulate not because they were seen — but because they weren’t. their eloquence is a survival mechanism. they learn to phrase things perfectly because it’s the only way they’ll be taken seriously. and then they grow up and get told: “you’re so mature for your age.” “you’re so well-spoken.” “you’re so self-aware.” but maturity doesn’t always come from growth. sometimes it comes from grief. and being well-spoken doesn’t always mean you’ve done the emotional work — it means you’ve learned to narrate the work in a way that sounds convincing.

historically, the idea of being “articulate” has always been coded. in colonial structures, native languages were suppressed not just to erase culture, but to reinforce the idea that fluency in the colonizer’s tongue was a sign of intelligence. accents were criminalized. dialects were mocked. even today, people are told to “neutralize” their accents to be taken seriously in global professional spaces. we hear it in tech panels and writer conferences and on podcasts where people with lived experience are only deemed credible if they sound like they have a liberal arts degree. what does that say about who gets to express pain and still be believed? who gets to speak emotionally and still be respected? what does that say about the girl who stutters in therapy, or the boy who says everything twice because he’s nervous, or the friend who can only express grief through silence? we are taught to believe that insight comes in full sentences. but that’s not true. some people process by speaking. others process by being still. some people need metaphors. others need ten minutes of saying “i don’t know” before the real thing comes out. yet in many spaces — therapy, education, work, even friendships — the person who speaks calmly and clearly is the one who’s believed. it’s a dangerous hierarchy: articulation as legitimacy. speech as proof. eloquence as evidence of worth.

this also plays out in activism and social justice work. the pressure on marginalized people to “educate” others in a tone that is digestible. to be passionate, but not angry. truthful, but not confrontational. emotional, but not reactive. people are asked to make their pain poetic before it can be heard. and those who can do that are elevated as spokespeople — while those who can’t are often dismissed as irrational or aggressive. what gets lost in this is the legitimacy of emotional inarticulateness. the right to say, “i don’t know how to say it yet.” the right to feel something without turning it into a teachable moment. philosophers like ludwig wittgenstein and julia kristeva have written about the limits of language — how there are things that can be felt but never said. and yet, modern society seems unwilling to accept that. we demand soundbites. captions. closing paragraphs. we want every feeling to be narratable. every thought to be quotable.

and those of us who are good with language fall into this trap most easily. we turn every experience into an essay before we’ve even fully lived it. we talk about things before we’ve grieved them. we explain ourselves before we’ve understood ourselves. we speak from the wound, and because it sounds like wisdom, no one checks if we’re actually okay. meanwhile, some of the deepest things ever said to me were said badly. stuttered. half-formed. whispered. but they were honest. and that’s the thing. we don’t need people to be well-spoken. we need them to be real. and being real — truly real — often means being messy. it means saying something clumsy. it means doubling back. it means apologizing mid-sentence. it means getting to the end of the story and realizing you’re not ready to tell it yet. we need to build a culture that values presence over polish. a culture where someone can say something awkward and still be loved. where someone can speak emotionally and still be taken seriously. where someone can say too much, too soon, and not be punished for it.

because this burden — the burden to be well-spoken — is heaviest on those who’ve been most hurt. and asking them to express their pain perfectly before they’re allowed to be believed is not just unfair. it’s violent. language can be beautiful. it can liberate. but it can also become a prison. so maybe the point isn’t to say it well. maybe the point is just to say it. or to say nothing until we’re ready. or to be surrounded by people who can hear us, even when we don’t have the words. because sometimes, that’s the most honest language of all.