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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The hardest part wasn’t leaving him. It was what came after – the long, disorienting process of learning how to exist in a body I had been taught to disconnect from. A body that had been touched, commanded, and criticized… Continue reading