The Social Wounds We Pretend Are Normal

The Social Wounds We Pretend Are Normal

Jan 3 , 2026. By Eden Sahle ( Eden Sahle is founder and CEO of Yada Technology Plc. She has studied law with a focus on international economic law. She can be reached at edensah2000@gmail.com. )

For more than three years after my beloved father’s and my best friend Salem’s passing, my world shrank. Grief did not arrive as a tidy, private emotion that could be contained between appointments and obligations.

It took over my mind and my routines. I stopped socialising almost without conscious choice. I stayed close to my husband, Mike, and later poured myself into becoming a mother to my daughter. I also stopped using my phone.

I was out of touch in the most literal sense. A few people checked on me by calling my husband, and I was grateful, yet I could not step back into wider social life. Healing, for me, meant prayer, quiet, and closeness, not conversation.

Recently, something shifted. The weight of grief has not lifted, but it has softened enough for me to look up again. I felt ready to socialise, to reconnect, to listen and speak as myself rather than as someone merely surviving grief.

What I did not expect was how much the social landscape had changed while I was gone. I walked back into circles of women I once knew, only to find them fractured.

Friends who once laughed together now avoided each other entirely. Some had stopped speaking. Others spoke through clenched teeth. There was bitterness, anger, and an almost physical discomfort at the mention of certain names. I found myself afraid to mention one person to another, as though I might trigger an emotional alarm.

Coming out of deep grief, this was jarring. Loss taught me how priceless relationships are, how enduring they can be even after death, and how much pain silence can hold. Watching adults actively despise one another, refusing to sit down and talk, felt like another kind of loss.

I understand that people can hurt each other deeply. I am not naïve about betrayal, misunderstandings, or words that cut and linger. Still, I could not shake the sense that choosing distance over dialogue often costs more than it saves.

Psychological research helps explain why so many adult friendships end this way. Studies on conflict avoidance show that many people would rather live with unresolved anger than face an uncomfortable conversation. Avoidance feels safer in the short term. It protects the ego and lowers immediate stress.

Over time, it hardens resentment. When issues go unspoken, the mind fills in the gaps. Motives are assumed. Moments are replayed and rewritten to justify pain. Hurt slips easily into contempt.

Emotional intelligence also plays a role, a concept that has moved from academic journals into everyday language for good reason. It involves recognising our own emotions, managing them, and understanding the feelings of others.

Research consistently links higher emotional intelligence with stronger relationships and better conflict resolution. When emotional intelligence is low, people react defensively, personalise disagreements, and treat conflict as a threat rather than a problem to solve.

Sitting down to talk requires vulnerability. It means admitting that we may have misunderstood something or contributed to the damage. For many adults, that feels harder than cutting someone off.

Social dynamics among women add another layer. Studies on female friendships note that indirect communication, unspoken expectations, and fear of confrontation often shape conflict.

Many women are socialised from a young age to keep the peace, to be pleasant, and to avoid appearing difficult. When conflict finally surfaces, it often emerges sideways through silence, gossip, or sudden withdrawal instead of direct conversation. Over time, these patterns create deep rifts that feel impossible to bridge, even when the original issue was minor.

Grief changed how I see these situations. Losing my father and my best friend Salem stripped away my tolerance for pettiness. When you have sat with the finality of death, holding grudges feels profoundly regrettable. That does not mean staying in harmful relationships, but it does mean forgiving everything.

Physicians note that chronic toxic interactions damage mental health and overall well-being. Yet there is a wide space between protecting oneself and nurturing resentment. Choosing to talk, or at least to part with clarity rather than contempt, reflects emotional maturity.

What struck me most was how normalised this bitterness had become. People spoke about former friends as if animosity were the only reasonable outcome. There was little room for nuance, growth, or repair. Research on adult friendships suggests many conflicts stem from life transitions rather than malice.

Marriage, parenthood, grief, career shifts, and stress all reshape availability and expectations. Without communication, these changes are easily misread as rejection or disrespect.

As I re-entered social life, I felt caught between worlds. Grief taught me the value of peaceful, loving relationships. The social environment I returned to was thick with unspoken rules and old wounds. I moved carefully, yet I refused to carry hatred that was not mine.

Mentioning a name should not feel like handling a fragile object. Adults are capable of more than that. We can listen, explain, apologise, and sometimes agree to disagree without dehumanising one another.

Grief taught me that relationships are precious and not disposable. It also taught me that healing does not happen in isolation forever. We return to the world changed, and sometimes the world has changed too. When conflict is met with avoidance and bitterness, the true meaning of life is missed, living in peace with others.

Choosing conversation over contempt is not weakness. It is emotional intelligence in practice, and one of the few ways to stop hurt from multiplying as it passes from one person to the next.

PUBLISHED ON Jan 03,2026 [ VOL 26 , NO 1340]