Some people become very good at translating themselves.

Not into another language exactly, but into a version of themselves that seems easier for other people to understand.

They learn which parts need explaining. Which parts need softening. Which parts need a bit of context before they can be taken seriously. Which parts are easier to leave out altogether, because it takes too much energy to make them make sense again.

This can happen for many reasons.

If your life, identity, relationships, work, body, or inner world has not always fit the assumptions around you, you may become used to adding footnotes to yourself.

Here is what I mean.
Here is why that matters.
Here is why I responded that way.
Here is why this is not as simple as it looks.
Here is the part of the story you probably do not know.

Sometimes that kind of translation is necessary. It can help people understand. It can make communication clearer. It can protect something important from being misread.

But it can also become tiring.

There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from not only feeling something, but also having to convert it into a form other people can recognise before it is allowed to be real.

You might start to notice the effort before you notice the feeling itself. The pause before answering. The mental rearranging. The decision about whether it is worth explaining this time. The sense of already being tired before you have even begun.

Counselling is not a place where you have to arrive perfectly translated.

You do not need to explain the whole backstory before something is allowed to matter.

Sometimes the work is not about finding better words straight away. Sometimes it is about noticing how much work you have been doing to be understood at all.

In counselling, there can be room to speak in a less edited way. To pause. To search for words. To not know exactly what you mean yet. To let something be present before it has been fully explained.

You do not have to be perfectly translated before you can be heard.

If you are tired of making yourself understandable before you feel heard, you are welcome to get in touch.