1. Writing as a Safe Space

I struggle to speak authentically.

Not always, and not with everyone. But in quite a few situations, especially group settings, or when I sense I’m being watched, something in me retreats. My stream of consciousness flickers and recedes like a flame in the wind. Probably looking for a better contract.

To be clear: this isn’t because I lie. It’s not a lack of honesty, it’s a lack of access. 

Authenticity, for me, lives beneath a few layers of vigilance, nervous system reactivity, or over-processing. To speak from that deeper place often requires stillness, safety, and space to find the right words. This blog is my attempt to explain why, with only minor detours into metaphor, in case anyone else out there feels the same.

Why do I struggle in public spaces or certain social situations?

Sometimes it’s a flicker of social anxiety. Other times, it feels like my nervous system is screening reruns of “The Worst Moments of Year Seven” on loop. My body remembers feeling reprimanded, made fun of and attacked. Even when my mind tries to be the responsible adult in the room and remind me, this is not 1997.

Recently, I’ve been part of a group where I’m supposed to share openly. 

It’s mostly men, and while most of them are kind and trustworthy, I find myself freezing. It's not about them, it’s about what my inner wiring has learned to interpret as high-alert territory. Still, that’s not the whole story.

Because even in safer spaces, I’ve always found it easier to write than to speak.

It’s not really about shyness. Or introversion. Or the irrational love I harbour for the sound of keys clacking. It’s something more foundational.

Writing is the only space where I can hear myself think without interruption - internal or external, imagined or statistically improbable.

In conversation, thoughts arrive like confetti in a wind tunnel. I’m aware of tone, timing, facial cues, whether I’m making too much eye contact or not enough, and whether the other person’s blink meant boredom or the early onset of a migraine. It’s a sensory orchestra I was never trained to conduct.

But on the page, everything softens. My mind lays the pieces down one by one, like puzzle fragments being sorted by colour, category, and questionable life choices. Writing slows the spin of the world until I can see where the edges are.

It’s not just about clarity. It’s about safety. Writing is where I hold the talking stick without interruption, where I can track the full arc of a thought without losing it halfway through because someone blinked too loud.

It’s not just expression. It’s survival.

Part 2: The Neurology of Writing vs Speaking

The brain doesn’t treat writing and speaking as equals. It respects each task in a very different way, and like all good bureaucracies, it files them in separate departments and makes them fill out different forms.

Speaking happens fast. It relies on Broca’s area (to form language), Wernicke’s area (to comprehend it), and a frantic coordination between motor and auditory systems that makes you wonder how anything gets said at all. It’s a miracle, really - that words emerge in coherent order when your brain is simultaneously juggling tone, gestures, your listener’s micro-reactions, and whether you're standing too close to the snack table.

Speaking is a performance. Even when it’s casual. Especially when it’s not meant to be.

Writing, on the other hand, is an act of composition. It hands things over to the prefrontal cortex - that slow, reflective part of the brain that prefers calm lighting and long deadlines. Here, I can pause. Backtrack. Rewrite a sentence five times until it finally means what I meant (or at least looks pretty doing it).

When I speak, I often feel like a clumsy translator trying to represent a language I don’t entirely know - scrambling for a phrase while the moment gallops away without me. But when I write, I get to sit with the original language of the thought itself. I get to honour its pace.

And neurologically, that matters.

Because some of us weren’t built for improv. We weren’t made to toss words like darts - we were made to weave them like thread.

Part 3: Neurodivergence & Verbal Shutdown (Revised)

Here’s something I didn’t realise for a long time: not all brains process thought the same way. Not all nervous systems walk into a room, scan for danger, and feel reassured by the lack of tigers.

For some of us, the danger is internal-woven into the very act of translating thought into speech. If you’ve ever tried to talk while your brain was running six tabs, five childhood flashbacks, four existential ponderings, and a sudden critique about your outfit - congratulations, you may be a little neurodivergent.

For those of us with ADHD or traits of high sensitivity, thoughts arrive like fireworks - brilliant, fast, and gone if you don’t catch them. Speaking is too slow to keep up. Writing, however, lets us become thought-archaeologists. It gives us tools. It gives us time. It gives us a decent chance of sounding sane.

Sometimes, writing is the only way to unload the RAM.

It’s like my brain is carrying too many open tabs - ideas, worries, dialogue drafts, forgotten dreams - and writing is the only way to finally hit ‘Save As’. Until then, everything runs hot and glitchy. I can't speak because the system's overloaded. But once I start writing, it’s like the pressure valve releases. The page listens. The page doesn’t interrupt. The page lets me get it all out, one keystroke at a time.

But on the flip side, there are days when my brain doesn’t feel like it’s doing anything at all. No fireworks, no confettijust grey static where my thoughts should be. On those days, I prod it like a sulky toaster, hoping for sparks.

And when nothing comes? The anxiety kicks in. Because silence is fine when it's chosen. It’s terrifying when it’s involuntary.

So I lean into a part of me that can play the part. I become the blonde archetype - the breezy, harmless, faintly ridiculous version of myself. People laugh. They relax. They think I’m light-hearted. What they don’t realise is that she’s the emergency backup character. She appears when the system is overloaded or mysteriously empty.

It’s a strange trick of my neurology: the faster my thoughts, the more vacant I appear. The more complex the internal world, the simpler the outside persona. It’s not deception - it’s diplomacy.

But when I write, I don’t have to perform. I just have to be.

Part 4: Public Speaking and Fear Circuits

Public speaking is a particular kind of theatre. And for some of us, it’s more Greek tragedy than stand-up comedy.

It’s not that the words aren’t there. It’s that the moment they’re needed, the brain panics and hides them somewhere near the spleen.

When your body perceives social exposure as potential danger, the amygdala lights up like a warning beacon. The nervous system slides into fight-or-flight. Creative thinking? Language finesse? Those departments are temporarily closed for renovation.

The anterior cingulate cortex joins the drama, monitoring everything for error with all the subtlety of a car alarm. The prefrontal cortex, usually so good at speech and sequencing, quietly resigns. You are left blinking at the crowd, unsure of your name or the general point of existence.

Writing removes the audience. And with it, the panic.

There are no blinking eyes, no invisible countdown, no social chess game unfolding mid-sentence. The fear circuits go quiet. The language circuits wake up. And just like that, you can think again.

Some of us were never meant to deliver our thoughts on a stage. Our truest voice might not be the one that speaks - but the one that writes.

Part 5: Meeting Myself on the Page

This is where I fall in love.

With writing. With words. With the peculiar, invisible bridge that forms between my inner world and the page.

Writing isn’t just how I think - it’s how I find the version of me that doesn’t need to perform or filter or rearrange. The one I’ve spent years guarding, protecting, and sometimes disguising behind cleverness or attempted charm.

When I write, she shows up. She doesn't apologise. She doesn’t blink nervously. She doesn’t rush.

There’s no audience here. Just ink, breath, and the sacred rhythm of a sentence that finally lands true.

Writing is where I feel safest. It’s my secret world. A world where I don’t need permission to exist. Where every word I choose becomes a breadcrumb trail back to the self I almost forgot.

This is why I write.

Not to be heard. But to remember who I am.

And she’s not a punchline. Not a blank mind. Not the girl who vanishes mid-sentence.

She’s the writer. The one who always knew what she meant to say - she just needed the right space to say it.