Tag Archives: mental-health

Personal

I Carried It Alone

Even if they could pretend it never happened, I couldn’t. Even if she told me I shouldn’t tell people about it, I couldn’t help but speak. Because the one person who couldn’t pretend it didn’t happen was me. It happened to me. And I was dying for someone to see it. I was aching to be seen—held, embraced, even as my wounds were still bleeding. It had cut me in places I hadn’t even realized at the time. I was unaware that it would ache silently forever—for the part of me that died.

I was too young to know any better. So when I told people, maybe they didn’t see it as something that happened to me. Maybe they just saw what I had become after. And because that’s how they saw me, that’s how I began to see myself too: utterly ruined.

I shouldn’t be thinking about it now, but it’s Monday again—my weekly therapy day. Last session ended with us unpacking that trauma, and I’ve been left to reflect. To remember how it felt. To remember how it happened.

But all week, I didn’t really drown in it. I don’t think I even tried. I’m wired to push it down. And I do it so well that I start to ask myself—was what happened really that big of a deal?

These are the memories I never sat down to recall, just kept running from. So much so that I barely remember half of it. I just remember myself, standing there—dead inside. On the outside, I barely moved. I swear I had no movement of my own. Everything was done to me. I was fifteen. My life hadn’t even properly started, and I already felt ruined.

It felt like the ultimate betrayal. Like I had betrayed myself. Like I had failed to protect me. I felt responsible. I had been manipulated and isolated so completely, I didn’t even believe there were people who could—or would—save me. So I quietly endured it. Months of abuse, manipulation, and hostility.

That one thing that happened became the cornerstone of everything else that followed. It shaped me. It shaped my relationships. It shaped the relationship I had with myself. The trauma alone was unbearable—but the second-hand trauma, the one from never being allowed to process or speak of it properly, was even heavier. My behaviors became patterns—trauma responses I didn’t even recognize until now, seventeen years later. Longer than I had been alive when it happened to me. The trauma is older than I was when it first occurred.

I was forced to bury the pain so deep that I began questioning it. Did it really hurt? That planted the seeds of a lifelong struggle. Not having anyone validate my trauma meant I started doubting everything. While others moved on, I stayed frozen. Broken. And this became the beginning of me questioning reality itself. Was what I felt real, or was it all in my head?

My thoughts split into two ends, always pulling at each other. I could never quite be sure of anything. And that uncertainty—of myself, of my own mind—felt like a curse. My sense of self failed to exist.

I was never taught to love myself. So I never really valued me. I barely even saw me. I didn’t care about how I felt. I was conditioned to overlook myself, and others followed suit. I was invisible. And for the rest of my teenage years and into my twenties, I only saw myself through the eyes of others. If they didn’t see me, I didn’t exist. Their validation was my only evidence of being alive.

Surely, there couldn’t have been a worse way to live through those years—but that’s how they were.

And maybe—just maybe—the reason I give so many chances to people who hurt me is because I had to forgive my perpetrators. And if I can live with that, how hard can the rest be?

Standard
Personal

Is It Too Late to Dream of Love?

Is there an age where it becomes embarrassing to still want the love you dream of? A quiet shame that creeps in when you find yourself hoping for a fairytale ending—like if it hasn’t happened by now, maybe it never will?

I don’t think it’s about a lack of options. It’s not that there aren’t enough men in the world. But there’s definitely a scarcity of men with the right intentions. And I’ll be the first to admit—sometimes I don’t even let the kind ones in. The ones who are gentle, who show up, who don’t play games. My heart rarely ignites for them. And maybe that’s on me.

This is the paradox I live in.

I fall for those who unsettle me. Who throw my nervous system into chaos. Because that’s what love looked like to me growing up. Unpredictable. Unstable. It’s what I knew. It’s what felt familiar. So now, when someone comes along and treats me with genuine care, I often feel… nothing. No spark. No pull. Just a strange hollowness.

Because healthy love feels boring. Steady feels boring. And god, how I envy the people who flourish in peace—those who are at ease when things get calm, when love slows down, becomes routine, becomes real.

The love I’ve known is messy and loud and intoxicating. At first, it feels like a high. The uncertainty, the chase, the edge—it keeps me awake. It keeps me wanting. It feels like the only kind of love that exists for me.

And I hate that.

Living with a personality disorder doesn’t define me, but it shapes me. It shapes how I love, how I attach, how I respond to safety and chaos. I’m not trying to make it my identity, but I’d be lying if I said it hasn’t left fingerprints all over my life.

At some point, you have to be honest with yourself. Maybe I’m just wired differently. Maybe what’s supposed to feel like home never quite will. Maybe my kind of love exists outside the lines of normal—and that’s something I’m still learning to sit with.

Standard
Personal

Digital Fatigue

Don’t you ever wish we could disconnect? Not from the people we love, but from the constant pressure to always be available, always reachable, always “on.”

We live in a time where everything is just a tap away. The world has advanced so quickly. Technology has brought us ease, speed, and connection like never before. But along with that, it has quietly added a new kind of weight to our lives. A subtle but persistent expectation to stay online, to reply immediately, to be present at all times. It’s exhausting, even if we don’t always realize it.

Sure, we can silence our phones. We can decide to reply to messages later. We can take breaks when we feel overwhelmed. But even then, it doesn’t feel like a true pause. The pressure lingers in the background, quietly whispering that you’re falling behind, that someone is waiting on you. It has become so embedded into our routines that separating from it feels nearly impossible.

Sometimes I miss the simplicity of landlines. The feeling of calling someone and not reaching them. The sweetness of missing someone you couldn’t talk to instantly. There was something tender about the waiting, the anticipation, the distance. Now, we take the instant nature of communication for granted. Messages fly back and forth all day, yet the feeling behind them often feels diluted.

Lately, I’ve been craving slower, more intentional moments. I want to say, “Let’s meet Wednesday at eight,” and know we’ll both be there without confirming a dozen times. I want to go back to making plans and trusting them. I want to lessen the quantity of interactions and bring back the quality. Not every moment needs to be filled with updates or check-ins. Sometimes, it’s okay to just be, and then show up when it matters.

I miss the depth that came from space and silence. From time apart. From having stories to tell because you hadn’t spoken in a while. These days, it feels like we’re constantly talking, but rarely saying anything meaningful.

I don’t know if anyone else feels this way. Maybe it’s nostalgia. Maybe it’s burnout. Maybe it’s just me wanting to experience connection on my own terms again — more quality, less quantity. Something slower. One that doesn’t depend on constant notifications, but instead is built on trust, presence, and care.

Or is that too 90s of me?

Standard
Personal

Trusting with Tremors

They say without trust, a relationship is as good as dead — and I fully agree.
But what about when you still believe in the good in someone?
What about when you see the change, however small?
What about when their effort doesn’t erase the past, but makes you pause and wonder — maybe… maybe this could still work?

So what do we do with broken trust?

I’ve tried to heal from it. I’ve also tried to survive it. I’ve gone through his phone more times than I want to admit. Found nothing I loved — but everything that made just enough sense to leave me confused instead of angry. That strange in-between space. Not guilty, not innocent. Just human.

Still, if you decide to stay with someone who once broke your trust, it’s a risk and a burden you willingly sign up for.
And once you sign up for it, maybe it’s time to stop looking over your shoulder — and start looking for solutions.

I used to check his location.
Not because I didn’t know where he was — but because I needed proof that he still chose me, even when I wasn’t watching. It became a crutch. A tiny screen I used to soothe a massive ache.

But I don’t want to live like that anymore.
I want to learn to trust.
Not blindly — but bravely.
Not all at once — but one gentle, terrifying step at a time.

Rebuilding trust isn’t romantic.
It’s slow, repetitive, and exhausting.
It requires presence, consistency, and repair.
But I believe it’s possible — just like love after loss, or laughter after grief.
It might take time. It might take him showing up in the moments I used to panic.
It might take new memories that are wonderful enough to outnumber the haunting ones.
But I want to try.

So this is my new mission:
To rebuild trust.
To let him be.
To free myself from the weight of suspicion.
Not for him. For me.

I want to love without surveillance.
I want to breathe without fear.
I want to trust again — even if my hands are still shaking.

Standard
Personal

Letters From My Mind

The Permission to Lean In

Is it okay if I start leaning a little more into my diagnosis?

It’s been four years since I was diagnosed, and for most of that time, I’ve done everything I could to distance myself from it. I treated it like a side trait — something minor, something manageable — like if I just ignored it enough, it would stay quiet. But lately, nothing makes sense. Or maybe, everything has stopped pretending to make sense.

And I’ve slowly come to realise that nothing will make sense until I understand my nervous system. Until I stop resisting and start accepting. Until I fully lean in. Until I embrace this diagnosis — not as a limitation, but as a map.

I didn’t lean in earlier because I was scared. Scared that if I accepted it, I’d use it as a crutch. That I’d start excusing my behaviour with it, that it would define me, swallow me, and become my whole personality. I didn’t want to be a walking diagnosis. I didn’t want to be the wreck I feared I was.

And if I’m being honest, it’s also because of how misunderstood all of this still is — especially here. People are just starting to grasp what depression is. Anxiety is beginning to be taken seriously. But anything beyond that? It’s like speaking a language no one around you understands. You say “emotional dysregulation” and they hear “dramatic.” You say “fear of abandonment” and they hear “clingy.”

So I’ve been carrying this quietly — because I didn’t want to be seen as mentally ill. I didn’t want to wear that label.

But does this diagnosis make life harder? Sometimes, yes.
Does it make me feel broken? Often.
Is it okay to not be okay?
I’m trying to believe that it is.

Because this weight I carry — this invisible thing that suffocates, pulls, claws at my sense of safety — it’s real. And I’m tired of pretending it’s not.

Standard
Personal

Burnt Out, Still Breathing

How has it been months since I last wrote?


It honestly shocks me. Writing was my anchor—my way of coping, healing, surviving. Not being able to write has felt like a slow erosion of my identity, like I’ve been silently mourning parts of myself.

As always, I had planned to clear my drafts before the new year. Start fresh. But right before the new year, everything fell apart. I went through some of the worst online harassment I’ve ever faced. It left me bed-ridden, in shock. Something I loved—someone I was—felt attacked. And from people I once felt safe with. That betrayal broke something in me. And it didn’t stop there—it just kept getting worse. So I retreated. I stopped being vulnerable. I stopped writing. I stopped making sense of my emotions. It felt pointless.

November was rough too. Honestly, it all started unraveling around August. I wanted it to be a beautiful season—new beginnings, maybe even love. And yes, I did fall in love. But I wasn’t loved back—not in the way I deserved. I was told I was loved, but I never really felt it. Everything I experienced said otherwise. Still, I held on. I compromised, I bargained, I hoped—until I nearly lost myself. Actually, I did. That relationship left me with wounds I’m still learning to name. And what hurts most is that I silenced myself for someone else. I didn’t write about what I went through because I wanted to protect them. And in doing that, I betrayed me. I don’t remember half of what happened, but my body does. It’s strange—how trauma lingers in muscles and skin, even when the mind forgets.

Then came February. And it was brutal. Shattered glass, wilted flowers—everything I once loved felt destroyed. I had started detaching in January, little by little. I knew I had to. That relationship was tearing me apart. And detaching—choosing myself—that was hard. I kept slipping back, reasoning with myself, battling emotions with logic. But one day, I said it: It’s over.

I ended it. I burned the bridge. Because I knew if I didn’t, I might walk back. And I couldn’t afford to. I had finally chosen myself. But life doesn’t slow down to let you process. Almost immediately, someone new appeared. Too soon, really. But I was so drained from the last relationship, I didn’t feel like grieving. I just wanted to be happy. And when he said he’d make me happy, I jumped. I didn’t want to admit it, but I was vulnerable. I was still the hopeless romantic who wanted to believe in good endings. But right before my birthday, that too fell apart. He wasn’t who he said he was.

And yet, I wouldn’t let him ruin my birthday.
I told myself no man was worth that.

Then my birthday came. My ex resurfaced, asking for another chance. And there I was—a girl just trying to be happy. So, I gave in. Not because I was healed, not because I had clarity, but because I was tired. I didn’t even get the time to grieve what had ended. But grief doesn’t wait. It caught up with me. It always does.

And now, here I am.
Burnt out.

All I want to do is sleep. Nothing excites me. There’s a void inside me that dulls everything around me. The joy is gone. And yet, I’m overwhelmed by responsibilities I can’t escape. I’m too tired to keep up appearances, too drained to keep every commitment. But I’m still trying. Maybe not as much as I used to. But with whatever I have left.

And that has to be enough for now.

Standard