Through the Fog

Tag: boundaries

  • Slow Erosion of Self

    It didn’t happen all at once.

    No single moment

    I could point to and say,

    there—

    that’s where I lost myself.

    It was quieter than that.

    More like water

    touching stone

    day after patient day,

    until the edges

    forgot

    how to be sharp.

    I started letting small things go—

    opinions

    that felt too heavy to defend,

    dreams

    that needed more space

    than the room allowed,

    pieces of laughter

    that sounded wrong

    in the wrong silence.

    Nothing dramatic.

    Nothing anyone would notice.

    Just the slow trade

    of truth for peace,

    of voice for calm,

    of self

    for staying.

    I became easy.

    Agreeable.

    Low-maintenance

    in all the ways

    that make a person

    hard to find again.

    And the strangest part

    was how normal it felt.

    How erosion

    can look like love

    when you’re standing

    inside it.

    Until one day

    I reached for myself

    out of habit—

    and touched

    only absence.

    No anger.

    No clear grief.

    Just a quiet question

    echoing through

    a hollow place:

    When did I disappear?

    I wish I could say

    this is the part

    where everything returns

    bright and certain.

    But truth is slower.

    Healing begins

    not with becoming whole,

    but with noticing

    what’s missing.

    With naming

    the emptiness

    instead of decorating it.

    With the fragile decision

    to believe

    a self can be rebuilt

    from fragments

    no one else

    thought were worth keeping.

    So now

    I gather pieces—

    a boundary here,

    a memory there,

    one honest word

    spoken softly

    into open air.

    It isn’t dramatic.

    It isn’t fast.

    But erosion

    took time.

    And maybe

    returning

    will too.

  • Don’t Tell Me to Relax

    Trauma doesn’t leave

    just because you say relax.

    Don’t talk to me like this is a choice,

    like I’m holding tension for fun,

    like my body didn’t learn this

    the hard way.

    You think calm is a switch.

    You think if you say the right words

    my pulse will forget

    every moment it had to protect me

    when no one else did.

    My body didn’t overreact—

    it adapted.

    It learned danger before language,

    learned survival before comfort,

    learned that staying alert

    was the only way to make it out alive.

    So don’t tell me to relax

    when my nervous system

    was trained in chaos.

    Don’t call it anxiety

    when it’s memory

    with nowhere else to go.

    Trauma lives in muscle.

    In breath that cuts short.

    In sleep that never stays deep.

    In the way I scan rooms

    even when nothing is happening.

    You want calm?

    Then bring safety.

    Real safety.

    Consistent safety.

    The kind that shows up

    even when I’m difficult,

    even when I’m shaking,

    even when I don’t know

    how to explain what’s wrong.

    Until then,

    don’t ask me to relax.

    Ask what happened.

    Ask what it took to survive.

    Ask why my body learned

    this language

    before it ever learned peace.

  • Misunderstood Strength

    Strength, we thought,

    was not leaving.

    It was holding the line

    while it cut us.

    It was loyalty without limits.

    It was silence

    that looked like grace.

    Now we know

    strength sometimes sounds like no,

    sometimes looks like distance,

    sometimes feels like grief

    for who we used to be.

  • “You’re Really Gonna Cry, Brittney?”

    Photo Credit: Louis Galvez

    You didn’t raise your voice.

    You didn’t have to.

    You just smiled

    and rearranged the truth

    until I started apologizing

    for things you did.

    You said I was sensitive.

    Dramatic.

    Confused.

    You said my memory had holes,

    that my feelings were exaggerations,

    that my pain was inconvenient.

    And slowly—

    I believed you.

    I started second-guessing

    my own reactions,

    replaying conversations

    like crime scenes,

    looking for proof

    that I was the problem.

    You taught me how to mistrust myself.

    How to ask permission

    for my own emotions.

    How to swallow hurt

    and call it maturity.

    When I cried,

    you called it manipulation.

    When I asked questions,

    you called it paranoia.

    When I needed reassurance,

    you called it neediness.

    You were always so calm.

    So reasonable.

    So sure.

    And I was always unraveling,

    wondering how I could feel so wrong

    while you felt so right.

    You erased things gently—

    a sentence here,

    a moment there—

    until my reality felt slippery,

    like trying to hold water

    with shaking hands.

    I started keeping quiet.

    Not because I had nothing to say,

    but because I didn’t trust

    what I knew anymore.

    And that’s the cruelest part:

    you didn’t just hurt me—

    you made me doubt

    my ability to know

    when I was being hurt.

    But here’s what you didn’t count on.

    Memory comes back

    when distance does.

    Clarity returns

    when the noise leaves.

    And truth—

    truth is patient.

    I remember now.

    I remember how my body reacted

    before my mind caught up.

    I remember the way my chest tightened

    every time you said,

    “That never happened.”

    I wasn’t crazy.

    I was responding to lies

    wrapped in softness.

    I wasn’t broken.

    I was being bent.

    And now,

    I choose myself again.

    I trust the voice

    you tried to quiet.

    I believe the version of me

    who knew something was wrong

    even when she couldn’t explain it yet.

    You don’t get to rewrite me anymore.

    I know what I lived.

    I know what I felt.

    And I no longer need your permission

    to call it what it was.

  • Lessons

    Everyone you meet

    has something to teach you—

    even the ones who stay a moment,

    even the ones who leave too soon.

    Some will show you kindness,

    soft as sunlight on tired skin.

    Some will show you strength,

    quiet and unspoken,

    the kind born from surviving.

    Others will show you pain—

    not to break you,

    but to uncover the places

    you still need to heal.

    Some will teach you patience,

    some will teach you boundaries,

    and a few rare souls

    will teach you love

    in a way you never knew existed.

    Every person is a chapter,

    every encounter a line—

    and whether you keep them

    or let them go,

    they shape you

    in ways you won’t see

    until later.

    Everyone you meet

    has something to teach you—

    and sometimes

    the lesson

    is simply

    who you’re becoming.

  • Boundaries

    They told me boundaries were healthy,

    but no one warned me they’d feel like loneliness.

    That saying no could echo so loudly

    inside a heart that only ever wanted to be seen.

    I built fences out of survival,

    not pride.

    Each post hammered in with memories

    of what it cost to trust the wrong hands.

    Now, when someone knocks,

    I hesitate.

    Not because I don’t want to open the gate—

    but because I still remember

    how it felt to be left bleeding in the garden.

    They say healing means protecting your peace,

    but sometimes peace looks like distance.

    Sometimes it means loving yourself enough

    to walk away before the breaking starts.

    So if you think I’m cold,

    understand this—

    I am only guarding what’s left.

    And if I keep the door locked,

    it’s not because I don’t care.

    It’s because I finally do.