Silencing myself was an interesting phenomenon that happened when I entered the tech world. Previously, I was in the art community in San Francisco, where people from all cultures congregated and expressed their ideas. It was a hodgepodge of different styles, languages, clothes, and food.

I spoke freely about art and things I created because I believed there was no correct answer. It was all a dialogue. Having a unique voice was one of the best traits you could have. Being generic was the ultimate insult. It was loud, messy, and in the end, beautiful.

I first started programming for a video game I was making with a bunch of my game designer friends from art school. In terms of writing code, I did everything wrong. I also did not care. In my mind, whatever it took to get a thing made was what mattered. I treated the code (which I programmed in Unity) the same way I treated Photoshop. I didn’t care about the details. If a thing worked, it worked. I googled how to do things in Unity, like create hit shots on a character, and plugged it in. Code was a tool in the same way paint was. I didn’t know what was in my paint, just that it was the right color. I learned enough to create what I wanted.

I started to get quiet when I went to a bootcamp to learn to code as a career. It sucked the joy right out of it. Suddenly it wasn’t play anymore. There were right ways and wrong ways to do things. There were also men who clearly knew what the right ways were. I lost trust in myself and looked to them for the answers. I marched through the lessons, checking things off like they were on a list. I told myself I’d get to be creative later once I learned the fundamentals.

That still hasn’t happened.

As I progressed in my tech career, it was one white dude after another. After five years of being in this industry, I’ve worked with three other female developers. That’s not even how many fingers I have on my hand. And even then, it was only for a few months.

I was in an echo chamber. I started to believe that there was a right answer and a right way to speak. Unfortunately, the way I spoke was never right.

I believed there would be retribution if I spoke up and got the answer wrong. It was a sinking feeling, like when you got a test back, and it had a big D in red across the top. A big ‘Get Out,’ you don’t belong here, you’re not smart enough. No one said this, it was just a sensation that continued to grow the deeper into the industry I got. Almost five years of being the only woman in the room starts wearing you down.

I also thought that any white man with confidence in this industry knew what he was talking about. It took me ages to realize that this wasn’t true, but also that this industry rewards confidence like this if you look a certain way. It was a tech factory that pumped out the same cookie-cutter man, maybe a few iterations of him, but all looking eerily similar. They rise up quickly. Soon the upper ranks are filled with them.

I knew about imposter syndrome. The insidious thing about it is that even though you know it’s a problem throughout the industry, you still think it’s unique to you. You think the woman next to you doesn’t realize her worth, that she needs to stand up for herself. When it comes to you, unfortunately, they happen to be right. You are a fluke. Any second, you will be found out. Stay quiet.

If you scroll through your engineering chat in your company, you’ll notice barely any women speak. I had a manager who said I needed to speak up more in meetings, like it was something I wouldn’t have to do emotional summersaults to be able to do. When guys speak up, they think, here’s a thought I have. Let me share it. When women do, there’s the extra layer of “Will I be found out? Will I get in trouble?” Your nervous system triggers. You want to look to other women for support, but usually, you’re the only woman in the room. So you decide to be quiet and take it on the chin in your one-on-ones with your manager.

After years in tech and losing my voice, my art started to come back in a big way. I took everything I held back and got really loud on my canvas. My voice had to come back through painting because confrontation in real time scared the living bejesus out of me. I dug into my internalized oppression and the limiting beliefs that were handed to me.

I didn’t realize how oppressive it was to have just one type of person in a room. The magic of the art world in San Francisco was all the different people. No one was right because it was an ongoing conversation. When one group dominates a world, that conversation is shut off. There becomes a right way and a wrong way.

There are only diversity hires when one group has too much control.

I think the next iteration of my tech career will be purposely finding different types of people and creating that community where it feels safe to open up, fail, and have a conversation. I’ll make it a priority because I know that this is how I can return to feeling safe and being able to play. I miss that woman trying to make a video game with her friends. As a maker at heart, play is an integral part of how I create things, and it’s the piece I’ve been missing while in the tech industry.

I don’t want to be quiet anymore.

Being quiet in tech (when you’re not usually quiet) was originally published in Better Programming on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.