Screaming Into the Void (Even When No One's Listening)

It’s not about being heard.

Let me get that out of the way first. Screaming into the void isn’t some passive-aggressive plea for attention. It’s not a baited hook tossed into the churning feed of likes and comments and dopamine. It’s not a #mood. It’s not curated vulnerability wrapped in trendy mental health hashtags. No, sometimes it’s just you—raw, feral, furious, or devastated—flinging your voice into the black silence because silence has teeth and it’s been chewing on your soul.

You scream because the alternative is suffocating.

Not all pain wants to be witnessed. Not all confusion is looking for a reply. Sometimes you just need to say it. Sometimes your body demands that you make noise. That you hurl sound, spit, fury, whatever’s left of your shredded emotional bandwidth into something bigger and emptier than yourself. A place so devoid of judgment that it could swallow a thousand breakdowns and still not burp.

That's the void.

And I swear to god, I’ve grown to love it.

I used to think everything had to mean something.

That every word I wrote had to land somewhere. Every thought I bled out had to do something. Help someone. Change a mind. Get a laugh. Spark a dialogue. That whole overachiever martyr complex we pick up along the way—like if my suffering didn’t inspire or educate or entertain, then what was the point?

But the point is the scream.

The point is the act, not the echo. The exorcism, not the applause.

I’ve been angry. I’ve been broken. I’ve sat in my car and whispered curses through clenched teeth because even whispering felt too loud. I’ve written notes I never sent. Typed posts I never published. Recorded voicemails I never played back. I’ve let the shower muffle my sobs. I’ve yelled at the ocean like a lunatic. And guess what? The ocean never clapped back.

That’s the magic of the void. It doesn’t interrupt.

It doesn’t gaslight you with toxic positivity. It doesn’t try to fix you. It doesn’t smile and nod like it’s just waiting for its turn to talk. It doesn’t tell you that “everything happens for a reason” or ask if you’ve tried yoga. The void doesn’t sell you shit. It doesn’t track your scream for advertising data.

It just takes it.

And sometimes, that’s what you need. A place to place the unbearable. A pressure valve for when the world feels like it’s closing in and the people around you, as well-meaning as they are, just... aren’t the place. You know what I mean? They’ve got their own stuff. Their own triggers and stories and thresholds. And you? You’re a hurricane of barely-contained noise, and you don’t want to hurt anyone, but you can’t keep it in.

So you go to the void.

Now here’s the twist. The wild part. The thing I didn’t expect.

Sometimes, when you scream into the void, someone hears you.

Not always. Not predictably. Not the way you want or when you need it most. But sometimes someone is drifting by the same black hole you’re yelling into. Maybe they’re screaming too. Maybe they’ve gone hoarse. Maybe they’re just listening. But they catch the shape of your scream and recognize it. Not your words. Not your voice. Just the pain behind it. The shape of it.

And without even trying, without even meaning to, you’re not as alone anymore.

That’s not the point, but it’s a bonus.

The thing is, we’ve been taught that our voices only matter if someone reacts to them. That silence is failure. That effort without reward is wasted. That unless something changes, nothing mattered.

I call bullshit.

Sometimes you scream just to prove you’re still alive. Still in the fight. Still you underneath all the expectations and exhaustion and numbness. You scream because being silent too long makes you forget what your own voice sounds like. You scream because your pain is valid, even if no one puts a heart emoji on it. You scream because, deep down, you know you don’t need permission to take up space.

That’s not weakness. That’s power.

Unseen, unliked, unshared power.

I used to be afraid of the void. Terrified of what would happen if I poured myself into it and got nothing back. That’s the fear they sell you, isn’t it? “Post it and they will come.” “Speak and they will listen.” “Perform and they will validate you.” We’ve been conditioned to believe our pain only matters when it performs well.

But I’m done performing. Sometimes I’m just yelling.

And I’m fine with that.

I don’t want every post I write to be a plea for empathy. I don’t want every story I share to be measured by metrics or judged by whether it changed a life. I don’t want my most honest moments to be commodified for clicks. I want space. I want noise. I want the messy, glorious, unrehearsed rage of existing to exist without being wrapped in a bow and monetized.

I want to scream and not apologize for it.

And so do you.

Even if you don’t know it yet. Even if your scream sounds more like a whisper or a sigh or a snarky meme buried under layers of self-deprecation. Even if it’s a shaky “I’m fine” through clenched teeth. You’re screaming too. You’re doing your best. You’re cracking the shell.

Keep screaming.

The void can take it.

Because the truth is, we all are screaming.

Some of us do it loud. Some of us mask it in perfection. Some of us joke about it. Some of us put it in journals, or songs, or under our breath while we wait in traffic. But we’re all trying to be seen, even when we swear we don’t care if anyone’s looking.

And I guess that’s the real twist of this whole messy, gorgeous, painful process.

The void?
It’s not empty.

It’s just full of all of us—screaming, whispering, gasping for air, waiting for a moment of peace, a second of connection, a breath of relief. It’s not hollow. It’s just unfinished. It’s human.

So go ahead.

Scream.

Even if no one’s listening.

Even if no one understands.

Even if you don’t know what words to use.

Just scream.

Because you matter.

Because you’re still here.

And because sometimes, the loudest thing you can say is the one that no one else hears.