I stopped explaining my triggers. Not out of bitterness. Not even out of pride. I just got tired of watching people’s eyes glaze over halfway through my sentence. Of feeling like I was offering pieces of my pain to people who only held them for a moment before setting them down like they were too heavy, or too inconvenient.

At some point, it stopped feeling like connection and started feeling like performance. Like I was pleading for understanding from people who were never really trying to understand me in the first place. And the more I explained, the more invisible I felt. As if by naming what hurt, I made it easier for them to dismiss. As if saying it out loud made it less real.

There is a particular kind of loneliness that comes from being overstimulated by everything around you and still going unseen. From feeling every shift in tone, every hesitation in someone’s voice, every unspoken tension in a room – and having no one notice when you’re silently coming undone. You start to wonder if the problem is you. If maybe your sensitivity is the issue. If maybe you’re asking for too much when all you want is to feel safe in your own skin.

So I stopped explaining. Not because I don’t want to be known, but because I want to be known without having to prove why I matter. Without having to turn my trauma into a lecture just to make someone stay. Now, I pay attention to who notices the shift in my breathing. Who lowers their voice when the room gets too loud. Who doesn’t need every detail in order to offer care.

That’s what healing looks like for me now. Not constant disclosure. Not rehearsed vulnerability. Just quiet choosing. Quiet noticing. Quiet resilience. And slowly, I’m learning that the right people don’t need everything explained to treat you gently. They just listen – with their presence, not just their ears. And in that space, I don’t feel like a problem to be solved. I just feel human.