The Pressure Valve

Thanks to Eric Fulton for this writing prompt. Eric is the geo- tracking mastermind of Eric Fulton’s blog. If you haven’t seen his blog yet, check it out!

If your life had a volume knob, who keeps turning it down?

When I was little, my mother used to tell me, “Your voice carries.” It was her polite way of saying I was loud. For years, I felt like everyone around me was trying to turn my volume down. Eventually, I started doing it myself.

I spent years biting my tongue, holding back, and refusing to speak up when something bothered me. I thought that was just how I was “supposed” to be. But keeping the volume at zero didn’t make me peaceful—it turned me into a pressure cooker.

That silence manifested as a toxic cocktail of anxiety, resentment, and a low, quiet hum of dissatisfaction. Staying quiet wasn’t a virtue; it was a lack of a pressure valve. Eventually, the pressure would get too high, and I’d “blow my top.” It wasn’t healthy, and it wasn’t sustainable.

This is where the Bugs and Boundaries work becomes vital. I’m done compromising. I’m done accepting breadcrumbs just to keep the peace.

The most significant change isn’t just saying “No” to the things that drain me—though those boundaries are firmer than ever. It’s finally having the audacity to say “Yes” to my own potential. I’m no longer hovering in the middle, afraid to be definitive. The days of the “muted” version of my life are over.

I might still pick and choose my words with care, but I’m finally turning the volume back up to 100%.

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AI art created with Google Gemini.

The article “The pressure Valve” first appeared in Rebuilding Rob.

3 responses to “The Pressure Valve”

Liz

February 28, 2026

I didn’t have anyone quietening me as a child. Mostly I would have people saying I am quiet. Which I were. But later in life, when I became deaf, then in either direct words or indirectly, which indirectly I could see by their faces that they didn’t say that I was loud. I became quiet and quieter. But as you experienced, that bubble underneath that is going to break because of being quiet. Sometimes I snapped when I had the comment I am loud. I’d say while pointing to my hearing aids I was wearing at the time, “What’s loud? Cos I don’t know anymore.” I know that hit them and I hope it gave them some thought and awareness to their comments. I feel it did.
Later, my speech must have been quiet in places because some people struggled to hear me. Someone asked me to repeat. I must have spoke quieter. That person wanted me to speak up while repeating. It didn’t work. He got a little impatient as I said some certain words. He apologised. And a little later did something which I felt was making up for how he made me feel prior in that uncomfortable moment. Which I said thank you.

Now. As a person with a cochlear implant since being implanted last September and switched on last October, I now think to myself as I struggle with some sounds being sensitive to sounds, is this world really that loud? Because I seem to have forgotten how loud this world is.

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Reply
1. rebuilding rob
  
  February 28, 2026
  
  Liz, thank you for sharing your story with me.
  
  I have to admit that, even as I was writing it, and it even probably shows in the final draft, I was going back-and-forth between what it means to literally be told I was too loud or too quiet; and also in finding that figurative volume and speaking my own voice and my own truth.
  
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  Reply
  1. Liz
    
    February 28, 2026
    
    Yes, it showed that in your writing.
    
    LikeLiked by 1 person