Healing
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No One Told Me I Could Let Go
It took me years to realize the weight I carried didn’t belong to me. I was just a child trying to hold the cracks together with silence and obedience, hoping love would come if I could make everything feel okay.… Continue reading
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Twelve Years of Disappearing
I thought marriage meant partnership. I believed it was where two people showed up, equally, choosing each other through the hard things. I didn’t know mine would feel more like a stage play I never auditioned for. For twelve years,… Continue reading
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Erased in Plain Sight
I started with my voice. I lowered it, made it gentler, less passionate, less sharp around the edges. I watched his body language like a map, trying to land in the version of me that wouldn’t make him sigh or… Continue reading
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Leaving Was the Most Honest Thing I Did
I didn’t walk away from marriage. I walked away from the version of it where my voice disappeared under his. Where compromise meant silence, and devotion meant disappearing. I used to think staying made me strong. That love was proven… Continue reading
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The Cost of Belonging to Someone
The word wife once meant love to me. I imagined warmth in it, imagined being held, supported, protected. I thought it meant building something side by side. But with him, wife became the reason I stopped recognizing my own voice.… Continue reading
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When the Memories Catch Up
Now that I’m out, I can finally feel it. I used to think leaving would be the hard part, but it turns out feeling safe is what unlocks everything you once had to bury. The body keeps score, and now… Continue reading
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I Didn’t Get to Be the Daughter
I didn’t get to be the daughter. I didn’t get to melt down or fall apart or slam the door and scream that life wasn’t fair. I learned early that someone had to keep things from falling apart, and that… Continue reading
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I Was the Punchline
I remember that day like my body remembers danger. I had stopped by the gym before heading to meet my husband and some friends at the park. As I walked out, a man I didn’t know tried to make small… Continue reading
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The Shape I Bent Into
I kept shrinking myself. Softening my tone. Anticipating his moods before he even walked in the room. I changed the way I dressed, the way I laughed, the way I existed – hoping maybe this version of me would be… Continue reading
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Who I Might Have Been
Sometimes I catch myself moving through the world in ways I never chose. I trace the edges of who I’ve become and realize so much of it wasn’t shaped by joy or freedom – but by necessity. I learned to… Continue reading
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Flinching Was My First Language
I learned the rhythm of fear before I ever learned to form full sentences. I could read a room by the weight of a breath, the shift of a shadow, the sound of a shoe hitting tile just a little… Continue reading
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Some Memories Know the Way Back
There are names that still catch in my throat. The sound of them wraps around my spine like muscle memory, and suddenly I’m bracing for something that isn’t coming – but once did. There are rooms that feel louder than… Continue reading
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What the Vows Didn’t Protect Me From
Being married to someone who broke me didn’t shatter me all at once. It was slower than that. Quieter. It started with the way I second-guessed myself mid-sentence, the way I shrank a little when I laughed too loud, or… Continue reading
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The Power of Feeling Everything
The things I was called too sensitive for were the very instincts that kept me safe. I noticed the shift in tone, the weight in the room, the words left unsaid. While others brushed it off, I felt it all… Continue reading
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Survival Was My First Language
I didn’t learn emotions by being asked how I felt. I learned them by watching people’s faces change mid-sentence. Every shift in tone was a signal. Every sigh or silence taught me what to say and what to swallow. I… Continue reading
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Sitting With the Storm
I stopped trying to control every thought. I realized some were passing through, others had been living in me for years. So I learned to sit with them. To let the noise come and go without making it my identity.… Continue reading
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Learning the Language of Pain
He doesn’t talk about what happened. Not because he’s numb or over it, but because every time he tried to speak the truth, someone left. Or changed the subject. Or told him to man up. So he learned silence as… Continue reading
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Survival Was My Childhood
They said I was just sensitive. But I was scanning every room for tension, bracing for the shift before it came. The silence was not peace. It was a strategy to stay invisible long enough to stay safe. Even now,… Continue reading
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The Weight of That Ring
He said the word “wife” like it gave him a key. Like it granted him unspoken access to every part of me, not because I offered it, but because he believed the title alone made it his. I didn’t feel… Continue reading
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Chosen, But Not Safe
The word wife should have meant chosen. It should have meant safety, softness, a place to rest. It should have meant partnership, not performance. But somewhere along the way, it became something else. It became a role I had to… Continue reading
Light Calls To Light 