You don’t leave a toxic situationship like you close a door. You leave it like you peel something off your skin—slow, careful, and still wincing even when you know it has to come off. At first, it doesn’t feel like freedom. It feels like silence. The kind of silence that makes you reach for your phone without thinking, like your body is still trained to wait for a message that never really meant what it sounded like. Because that’s what it does to you—this almost-love, this h

I read this quote today it went like this: “Maybe every time you miss them, it’s because they’re telling a story about you in heaven.” Not the polished version. Not the one where you were always strong and never messy. The real one. The one that sounds like your laugh in a quiet room. The one that remembers you as a whole person—soft, stubborn, trying. Maybe they’re sitting somewhere light reaches everything, and they’re saying your name like it still has weight. Like it

I didn’t learn love from the healthy kind. The one that we all dream of as little kids. I learned it from the kind that comes with conditions. The kind that makes you earn softness. The kind that gives you warmth and then takes it away, just to see what you’ll do. The one that goes quietly as a punishment. The kind that teaches you to call anxiety “butterflies,” to call jealousy “care,” to call control “protection,” to call inconsistency “a rough phase.” And it wasn’t just

Sometimes the hardest thing to grieve isn’t a person. It’s you. Not the you that exists right now—the one who still gets up, still functions, still tries. I mean the version of you that could’ve existed if life had been gentler. The version of you that didn’t have to learn survival so early. The version of you that didn’t have to become “strong” just to make it through normal days. The version of you you were supposed to become. People talk about grief like it only belongs t

Healing from the world is a strange thing to say out loud, because people hear it and think you’re being dramatic. Like you’re trying to make life sound bigger than it is. Mostly I believe they don’t really understand what I mean when I say im trying to heal from the world. When I mention world, I don’t mean the world like the planet. I mean the world like everything that can happen to you. Every up and every down that we face. Family that hurts you in ways you can’t ex

I’m tired of feeling like I’m only noticed when I’m useful. Its this quiet feeling that settles slowly in your chest, which with time that seems to be growing and hurting more. Its like my kindness is expected. Like my effort is automatic. Like I’ll always be there, so nobody has to check if I’m okay—they just assume I am. They assume I’ll understand. They assume I’ll forgive. They assume I won’t leave. And the worst part is how quiet it is. Nobody announces, “I’m taking

When I was little, I was always scared that people would forget me—not like forget my favorite color, but forget who I am . Forget my name in their head, forget my presence in a room, forget the feeling of me. And as long as I remember, I always felt out of place and boring, like my personality was too boring to be remembered. And as I grew up, that fear never left. It just moved. It lingered in the back corner of my mind like a shadow I couldn’t shake—the gut-wrenching fear

**Content warning: emotional abuse, manipulation, self-harm, suicidal threats.** I want to tell you a little bit about the worst part of my story. And I’m starting off with a warning—because this won’t be a pretty story, and most definitely not an easy one to write either. I already feel my fingers trembling, and honestly freaking out because my phone is already buzzing with his notification. This story doesn’t start when I was a little girl. It starts when I was 17. The year

The worst part about stars is that they burn out. You are a star. You always will be. But the reality is: stars burn out. And when they stop shining as brightly, they’re forgotten. I’ve always felt like I had to be talented, perfect, smart, pretty— the best at everything—just to be valued. Like my place could be taken the second I wasn’t “enough.” Like being gifted was my job. It didn’t matter what it did to my mental state, as long as I kept delivering the act of a p

I hope you meet someone who speaks your language. And no—I don’t mean the language you’ve spoken since you were little. Not the language you use to be understood on the surface: small talk, polite laughter, the version of you that knows how to keep things light. I mean the language underneath—the one you’ve been translating your whole life. The language of your silence. The way you go quiet when you’re overwhelmed, not because you don’t care, but because you care too much.

Promise after promise, they give them to you. “You’ll never be too much.” “You’re perfect the way you are.” “I promise I won’t leave.” “I promise I’ll stay.” I had that boy—sweet, kind, promising in every way. As he would’ve said: "mine." So tell me why it’s 3 a.m. again, My heart beating out of my chest, Hands shaking so badly I can barely write, Thighs itching with an urge I’ve known for far too long. A promise to stay for 80 years suddenly feels like 80 days, As t

There is a special kind of heartbreak that doesn’t come from being screamed at or dramatically dumped. It’s the quiet heartbreak of realizing you are easy to forget . The first time I felt it, it wasn’t even a big moment. No screaming, no door slamming, no goodbye text. Just… silence. And I think, well no I know that it was the most hurtful thing that has ever happened to me Messages slowly stopped. Plans stopped happening. My name disappeared from their stories, their calls,

There was a time my favorite phrase was “I don’t care.” No reply? I don’t care. You forgot about me again? I don’t care. Is he ignoring my messages? I don’t care. Did someone joke about me being “too emotional”? It’s fine, I don’t care. But the truth is: I do care . I care more than I like to share. Because I notice every little shift, every reply that takes longer and longer to come – and I’m sure you notice it too. “I don’t care” slowly turned into my protection ba

If you have ever been called too much, this is for you I can confidently say that probably 95% of girls have been told by someone – well, obviously usually by a man – that they were too much . Too much to handle. Too emotional. Too dramatic. Too anything, really. It’s one of those go‑to phrases they just pull out of their pockets. They say it so often that we start to wonder: Am I really too much? I’m obviously no exception to this feeling. It settled in when I was reall