A Refusal

I think about being a victim a lot. I’ve spent most of my life in survival mode, and the grief doesn’t leave. NOR DOES THE RAGE!

I judge myself for it. Hard. I hate that I feel like a victim and I can’t seem to stop.

But today I tried something different. Instead of shutting it down, I asked: what is this actually trying to do?

The anger isn’t random. It’s showing me exactly what happened — how much effort it took to be okay. How often I had to override myself. How little space there was for softness.

And underneath all of that isn’t chaos. It’s a refusal.

I’m not doing that to myself anymore.

The grief carries something too — a realization I keep circling back to. I shouldn’t have had to work this hard just to exist. And what that gives me isn’t weakness. It’s permission. To slow down. To stop treating myself like a problem to manage.

That’s what’s coming out of all of this. A way of being where I don’t abandon myself just to survive.

—

this is the kind of thing i sit with people inside of

not to fix it, but to see it clearly — the pattern, what it’s been protecting, and what’s trying to change

i do short, written reads where i look at what you’re in and reflect that back in a way that’s specific to you

if you feel like you’re in something like this and want help seeing it more clearly, you can reply here or message me 🤍