Healing
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Socks, Skies, and Silence
I don’t always know what safety feels like when it comes to people. I’ve been wrong before. Trusted the tone instead of the truth. Believed calm voices that came with cold eyes. So now I look for it in smaller… Continue reading
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Every Yes Costs Me Something
What they don’t see is the hesitation sitting in my chest before I even open the message. The way my heart races while my fingers hover over the keyboard. The way I read the same invitation three times, weighing every… Continue reading
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The Ache Beneath the Armor
It’s hard to ask for help when your trauma taught you that needing anything makes you a burden. So I don’t. I keep it in. I figure it out. I carry what’s too heavy because somewhere along the way, I… Continue reading
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Give Me Ground, Not Fireworks
I crave safety the way some people chase thrill. I’m not looking to be swept off my feet. I’m looking for ground that won’t disappear beneath me. The kind of peace that doesn’t feel like a pause before the next… Continue reading
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When the Ache Isn’t Physical
There are nights where I feel it in my shoulders first – a dull heaviness that sinks in without warning. Then in my chest. My back. My legs. A full-body ache that doesn’t have a source I can name. No… Continue reading
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The Silence That Startles Me
Some days, nothing looks wrong on the outside. The coffee is warm. The morning is quiet. The world moves normally. But then something small – a sharp tone, footsteps too loud, a door closing a little too hard – lands… Continue reading
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When Being Here Is All I Can Do
Some days I can talk to everyone. I can hold conversations, respond with ease, make people laugh, even carry their emotions alongside my own. I show up, I seem fine, I am fine – for a while. Other days, replying… Continue reading
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When Explaining Becomes Exhausting
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… Continue reading
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He Measured Me Like a Threat
He used to stand in the doorway like a gatekeeper, arms crossed, eyes moving over me not with admiration, but with possession. There was something cold in the way he looked at me – like he was searching for something… Continue reading
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What Time Can’t Touch
They say time heals. And maybe, on the surface, it does. Maybe the days stretch out just long enough to soften the sharpest edges, to make it easier to speak without your voice shaking, to carry the weight without dropping… Continue reading
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He Had the Key. He Just Never Used It
There’s a softness in me he’ll never meet again. Not because it’s gone, not because I’m bitter, but because it was offered once – fully, freely, without hesitation – and he stood in front of it like it was something… Continue reading
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This Is How Soft People Protect Themselves
I learned how to pull back without looking like I was retreating. A small shift in energy, a lighter tone, a well-timed smile that says everything’s fine even when I’m already halfway out the door emotionally. It’s subtle. You wouldn’t… Continue reading
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She Unfolds Where She’s Held, Not Watched
There’s a version of me that only comes out when I feel safe. She’s softer. Quieter. Laughs without scanning the room. Speaks without second-guessing. She doesn’t measure her words or shrink her feelings to fit someone else’s comfort. She doesn’t… Continue reading
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Slowness Is How I Know I’m Safe
I don’t play hard to get. That’s never been my game. I don’t need to be chased or proven right. I just move slowly where I’ve learned to be cautious. When you’ve handed your heart to people who held it… Continue reading
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Too Much for the Wrong Hands
He kept calling me complicated, like it was a flaw I hadn’t yet apologized for. He said it in that tone people use when they’re tired but won’t admit they’re out of depth. The thing is, I’ve been called complicated… Continue reading
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The Softest Revenge Is Becoming Untouchable
He always made sure I knew I didn’t belong. Every dinner with his friends was a reminder. Every joke that landed at my family’s expense, every time he corrected how I spoke or looked at me sideways when I mentioned… Continue reading
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A Version of Me He’ll Never Touch Again
She used to cry in silence, then wipe her face before anyone saw. Now she doesn’t need to hide. The tears taught her things no comfort ever could. She learned how to grieve without breaking, how to burn without turning… Continue reading
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Mercy, Even When You Could Burn It All Down
I remember the rage. How it sat in the corners of the room after he mocked the way my father spoke. How it built in my chest every time he introduced me to his colleagues with that tone that made… Continue reading
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When the Goalpost Keeps Moving
I didn’t recognize it as abuse at first. There were no bruises, no screaming matches, nothing you could point to and say, this is what’s wrong. What there was, instead, was me – exhausted, constantly second-guessing myself, walking on eggshells… Continue reading
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Parenting Through the Pain You Inherited
My father has never talked about what happened to him. Not really. We grew up knowing something was broken but not allowed to name it. The silence around his pain was louder than anything he ever said. It shaped our… Continue reading
Light Calls To Light 