The Secret Language of Worry

I’ve heard it said that honesty is the first casualty of illness. I’d say honesty is the first casualty in any struggle. I first learned this when I took my then fourteen-month-old daughter in for a developmental evaluation ordered by her pediatrician, after we first noticed her having seizures. After watching her “play” for almost an hour, a speech therapist and a registered nurse brought me their assessment: moderate to severe global delays. With a cry trapped in my throat, I asked, “Will she catch up?” The two women looked at each other, looked at my daughter, looked at the floor—never looking at me—and said, “We’ve seen miracles.” Was it a lie? Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t know. But I do know it wasn’t complete honesty.

This was my first exposure to the secret language of worry. Since that time, I’ve become quite fluent in this unique dialect.

It begins with the eyes. They look down and to the right, or over your left shoulder somewhere. Or the face turns toward you, but the eyes look somewhere else. There may be a smile on the face and the conversation might be jovial, but the eyes are focused elsewhere. Even when the truth in words is shared, the eyes usually drift away.

You will try to gain eye contact, and you might succeed momentarily, but then you will notice the mouth. There, around the lips, is a tightness—a slightly unnatural stiffness. Maybe the laugh is forced, the smile lingers a little too long. In the right setting, masks are worn, removing this level of communication, but you’ll notice the sound in the throat, the clearing of the vocal cords. Even a brief pause before an answer can be a tell in the language of worry. What is this provider really trying to tell me?

When you become fluent yourself, you notice the nuances of speaking the language of worry. You learn where this language originates. Suddenly, you’re avoiding eye contact when your spouse asks if you’re feeling okay. You find something interesting in the carpet to look at when your friend asks about the most recent lab results. Your voice becomes weak, and suddenly your throat needs clearing when a son or daughter asks about a future date on the calendar. Will you be well enough then? Who even knows?

The secret language of worry is meant as protection for the speaker and the hearer alike. We live in a world where information is more available than ever—for good or for bad. The fact remains: sometimes the truth can hurt, and sometimes we want to control how our reality impacts those we care about. So we carefully unfold information bit by bit, here a little, there a little, watching for the hearer’s reaction as we go. Can you handle this truth? Will you hold this worry with me?

In a few weeks, I will once again travel to the hospital for my two-year heart transplant follow-up. There, they will run a series of labs to monitor my organs—especially my kidneys (they’re currently on the struggle bus; I know, no lab tests needed). They’ll perform a chest X-ray, EKG, echocardiogram, right heart catheterization, and myocardium biopsy to check heart function and monitor rejection, as well as a left heart catheterization and angiogram to monitor cardiac allograft vasculopathy (I just wanted to flex some big medical jargon there). As this date approaches, in my concern, I find myself slipping into my secret language and needing to explain myself often.

Oh, how I wish to replace this language with the foreign tongue of celebratory optimism. I practice in my mind the speeches and affirmations of positivity. But over the years, the language of worry has become too ingrained, and I slip too easily into that train of thought—so help me. Gratitude helps. So, until then, I will practice prayer, patience, and gratitude.

If you find me slipping into this secret language, try for a moment to relate. You will recognize that there are no direct translations for empty platitudes in the language of worry; they ring hollow and have no real meaning to those of us fluent in the tongue. So just listen. Listening helps. In the end, we all speak the language of worry in our own way—it is, after all, a universal language.