Rage is new to me. Or maybe not new.

Maybe it was always there…

buried beneath survival, performance, self-preservation,
and the version of me that learned very early how to keep it together.

How to stay likable. How to stay optimistic.

How to be inspiring. How to laugh.

How to remain open enough to connect-

but guarded enough to survive.

For most of my life, I was the one who kept it cool.

Even when things hurt. Even when things broke.

Even when I was unraveling in ways I didn’t yet understand.

But there is something about prolonged instability-

real instability…that changes you.

Not inconvenience. Not stress.

I mean the kind of instability that erodes your nervous system.

The kind where your foundation doesn’t just crack-

it turns to quicksand.

Where safety stops feeling real.

Where every day feels like solving an impossible equation
with no right answer.

Where every decision feels catastrophic.

Where rest becomes inaccessible.

Where your body never fully unclenches.

Where survival mode stops being temporary-

and becomes your operating system.

That kind of living does something violent to the body.

Because rage is rarely sudden.

For me, it is a slow crawl.

Sleep deprivation. Noise. Fear. Accumulated grief.

Energetic and spiritual attacks. Weeks of exhaustion.

The constant hum of semi-trucks. Rest stops.

Hypervigilance. No true rest. No true safety.

No room for my nervous system to come down.

And then…something small.

A sentence. A tone. A misunderstanding.

Maybe my partner says something and my exhausted brain
hears threat, dismissal, pressure- even if that isn’t reality.

But by then, logic is already losing.

The pinball starts.

Irritation. Miscommunication. Escalation.

The unbearable feeling of not being understood.

Why are they pushing? Why is this getting worse?

Why can’t this resolve? Why does it feel like I am losing my mind?

And then…the furnace.

The coal keeps coming. Hotter. Bigger. More pressure.

The fire becomes too large to contain.

And the body, already overloaded, stops knowing
how to hold it…

So it erupts.

Screaming. Hair pulling. Hitting. Throwing.

Self-destruction. Total system overload.

Not because I want to.

Not because it feels good.

Not because I am cruel.

But because the energy has surpassed containment.

Because the nervous system has exceeded capacity.

Because devastation has nowhere else to go.

And afterward?

Collapse. Silence. Shaking. Regret. Grief.

The horrifying aftermath of coming back into your body

and seeing what survival mode just did.

Was any of it necessary? Could it have stopped?

Was I misunderstood- or did I misunderstand?

Why did my body choose destruction?

Why does desperation sometimes look so much like rage?

Somewhere in the aftermath is another grief-

The grief of seeing yourself become someone you barely recognize.

Not because that person is your truest self-

But because survival can distort you in ways you never imagined.

That kind of reckoning leaves its own scars.

That is the part I am learning.

Rage was never just anger.

It was grief. Helplessness. Fear. Sleep deprivation.

Loss of safety. Accumulated pain.

A nervous system so overloaded it no longer knew
how to contain what was happening inside.

Rage was the explosion.

But underneath it…was devastation.

I don’t usually talk about this part.

The ugly part.

The part where survival mode doesn’t look brave
or poetic or resilient.

The part where it looks like screaming.

Throwing things. Slamming doors.

Rage so intense it feels like your body
is trying to tear itself apart from the inside.

Because when you’ve been drowning for too long-

when every system fails, when every resource disappears,
when every ounce of stability has been stripped away-

sometimes love isn’t what surfaces first.

Sometimes it’s fury. Desperation. Terror.

Because hopelessness needs somewhere to go.

And when there’s no institution to scream at,
no broken system standing in front of you,
no faceless cruelty close enough to grab…

sometimes it lands on the person closest.

The person who stayed. The person you love most.

Not because they caused it.

Not because they deserve it.

But because they are there.

And sometimes “there” becomes dangerous
when your nervous system is lit on fire.

Yesterday, I exploded. Not metaphorically.

I screamed. I threw things.

I became everything I hate about what survival can do to a person.

And the worst part?

It wasn’t because my partner was my enemy.

It was because he was the only one there
while I was collapsing.

The only witness.

The only place for the pain to hit.

That truth is hard to sit with.

Because love doesn’t erase collapse.

And desperation doesn’t always look like quiet suffering.

Sometimes it looks feral.

Sometimes it looks like being so overwhelmed,
so terrified, so cornered by reality-

that your body stops knowing how to contain it.

So it erupts.

And afterward?

The silence. The shame.

The grief of realizing the person holding you together
also got hit by the fallout.

No one prepares you for that part.

For the way survival mode can distort pain.

For the way love can become collateral damage.

For the horrifying realization that sometimes
the safest person becomes the place
your devastation lands hardest.

That doesn’t make it okay.

But pretending it doesn’t happen doesn’t make it less real.

This is the messy part.

The part people don’t romanticize.

The part where survival isn’t inspiring.

It’s brutal. It’s dysregulated. It’s grief with nowhere to go.

And sometimes, when no one comes to save you…

the person beside you ends up catching
what was never theirs to carry.

And that may be one of survival’s cruelest truths.

The more I live, the more I realize- nothing is ever just one thing.

Not pain. Not healing. Not freedom. Not identity. Not survival.

Everything feels layered. Like an onion I never asked to keep peeling.

Because life is rarely simple enough to fit into neat categories.

You can be exhausted and still deeply trying.

You can feel grateful and completely devastated.

You can finally understand who you are…

and still feel trapped by what your life currently allows.

You can feel empowered for finally naming yourself…

while grieving how long it took and how far away full expression still feels.

You can feel safe with the person you love most…

while knowing the world around you remains painfully unstable.

You can savor a cup of coffee…

while quietly calculating how much longer your life can sustain itself like this.

You can be loved-

and still unsupported.

Seen-

and still misunderstood.

Healing-

and still grieving.

That’s what life keeps showing me.

We are often taught to flatten our experiences.

To simplify.

To choose one truth.

Either healing or hurting.
Strong or struggling.
Free or trapped.
Certain or lost.

But real life doesn’t work that way.

Real life is multilayered.

Two truths can exist at the same time.

And sometimes maturity isn’t about choosing one over the other.

Sometimes it’s about learning how to hold both.

Because maybe growth isn’t about simplifying life.

Maybe it’s about developing the capacity to hold complexity
without forcing it into something smaller just to feel comfortable.

Because nothing is ever just one thing.

And maybe that’s the truth we spend most of our lives trying not to see.

There is a difference between being a cheerleader and being a player.

Both are part of the same system. Both require energy. Both require presence, attention, timing. Neither is effortless.

But they are not doing the same kind of work.

A cheerleader sees the game from the outside. They read it, respond to it, reflect it back. They generate energy around what is happening. They help shape the atmosphere of the event. They keep momentum alive in the space surrounding the field.

A player is inside the field.

They are not interpreting the game from a distance- they are making decisions inside it. Under pressure. With consequence. Their actions change the scoreboard. Their choices shift what is possible next. They cannot observe without also being affected. They cannot participate without risk.

Both roles matter. But only one has direct access to outcomes.

And this is where the metaphor begins to stretch into something more personal.

Because being seen is often treated like being supported, when in reality it can feel more like being watched from the sidelines.

Cheering can be real. Encouragement can be real. Energy can be real. But none of it replaces participation in the structure that determines what actually changes.

You can be seen loudly and still be alone in what you are carrying.

You can be acknowledged, even celebrated, and still be unsupported in the places where consequence lives.

That is the part that is hard to explain without sounding ungrateful for attention-because attention does matter. It does soften isolation. It does interrupt silence. It does signal presence.

But attention is not the same as involvement.

And what I find myself trying to name is the gap between those two things.

The space where people can look directly at your life, respond to your existence, even feel something about it…and still remain outside of it.

Still remain in the position of watching.

Still remain safe from the cost of participating.

Meanwhile, the player is inside the game whether anyone is watching or not.

They are still subject to the rules of the field. Still exposed to consequence. Still responsible for movement that actually changes the outcome.

And I think that is where the sadness enters.

Not because no one sees.

But because being seen so often stops there.

Because visibility can begin to feel like a substitute for support, when what it really is-too often- is proximity without participation.

Energy without shared consequence.

Presence without shared risk.

And I do not need more energy around the field of my life.

I need presence inside it.

Not more cheering from a distance, but something that steps onto the field and helps carry what actually changes the score.

Because there is a specific kind of loneliness that comes from being acknowledged but not met.

It is not invisibility. It is something more complicated than that.

It is being legible but not held.

It is being responded to but not joined.

It is having your existence registered clearly enough that people can react to it- but not so fully entered into that anyone has to share its weight.

And over time, that creates a strange distortion in how life feels.

You begin to question whether being seen is supposed to be enough.

You begin to wonder why awareness doesn’t turn into movement.

Why recognition doesn’t become support.

Why proximity doesn’t become participation.

And you start to notice how many relationships- social, institutional, even casual- exist in that space.

The space of witnessing without entering.

Of noticing without staying.

Of responding without carrying.

It is not always neglect. Sometimes it is limitation. Sometimes it is people doing what they can within the boundaries they have. Sometimes it is simply how systems are built: to allow observation without obligation.

But the body does not experience it as theory.

The body experiences it as absence.

As a kind of quiet, persistent signal that something should be happening here- and isn’t.

That you are close enough to be seen clearly, but not close enough to be helped in a way that actually changes anything.

And I think that is what I am trying to name, underneath all of this.

Not a lack of care in the world.

But a lack of shared participation in the places where care becomes real.

Because cheering can fill a stadium with sound.

It can lift a moment.

It can make people feel less alone in the stands, less alone in the noise of their own watching.

But when the game ends, the field still has to be walked.

The injuries still have to be tended.

The consequences still have to be carried home.

And that part- the part after visibility, after reaction, after acknowledgment- that part belongs to those who step into it.

And I think I am learning, slowly, what it means to want less observation of my life…

…and more participation in it.

Not applause.

Not witnessing.

But shared weight.

Shared movement.

Something that does not stay on the sidelines.

“I’m fine” is rarely a statement of fact.

More often, it is a reflex. A social seal. A way to keep things moving without revealing what’s actually happening underneath.

I learned it early.

In my upbringing, there wasn’t much space for anything beyond it. Not in a way that felt safe, or welcomed, or even understood. “I’m fine” wasn’t just an answer- it was the expected endpoint. Anything beyond that felt unnecessary at best, and risky at worst. So I adapted. I learned the shape of acceptable speech. I learned what fit and what didn’t.

And over time, I stopped noticing the difference between honesty and performance.

By the time I entered adulthood, the mask had already been built.

Customer service only refined it.

In that world, “How are you?” is not a real question in the way people like to imagine it is. It is a greeting, a script, a shared agreement that the exchange will remain light, functional, contained. You answer quickly. Politely. Predictably.

“I’m fine.”

It doesn’t matter if you are tired. Or overwhelmed. Or barely holding yourself together. The response is already decided before the feeling even has a chance to surface.

It becomes muscle memory.

A social reflex so rehearsed it bypasses thought entirely.

But underneath that reflex are questions people rarely ask- and even more rarely answer honestly in real time.

Does this person actually have room for me?

Are they truly asking, or just performing politeness?

If I told the truth, would anything about this moment change- or would it only create discomfort I would then have to carry?

At some point, “I’m fine” stops being about truth and becomes a strategy.

A way to protect other people from what they haven’t asked to hold.

A way to protect yourself from the risk of being misunderstood, dismissed, or emotionally overexposed in the wrong space.

And the more often that strategy works, the more invisible it becomes.

That’s what unsettles me most.

Not that people say “I’m fine,” but how seamlessly it replaces anything else.

Because beneath it, there are entire worlds that never get spoken.

Grief that never gets witnessed.

Exhaustion that never gets named.

Depression that learns how to disguise itself in social acceptability.

We often talk about honesty as if it is simply a personal choice. But in reality, honesty is negotiated. It depends on timing, environment, relationship, and perceived safety. It depends on whether the body believes it will be received or simply managed.

So when someone says “I’m fine,” the more honest question might not be what are they hiding? but what made truth feel unusable here?

For me, I can see the trail of it clearly now.

The early conditioning.

The practiced politeness.

The workplace scripting.

The silent calculations of emotional risk in everyday interactions.

“I’m fine” didn’t appear as deception. It appeared as adaptation.

What I’m left wondering is how many people are still living inside that adaptation without ever questioning whether it still serves them…or whether it ever did.

And maybe the most unsettling thing about “I’m fine” is how easily it passes between us without interruption.

How often we accept it. How rarely we look closer. How quickly we move on.

And how many people we never think to ask again.

Not because we don’t care…but because we’ve been taught not to expect anything else.

“Why didn’t you say something?”

It’s a question people often ask when someone’s suffering finally becomes visible-when the mask cracks, when the silence becomes alarming, when survival begins to look too much like disappearance.

But what if I did say something?

What if I had been speaking for years, just not in ways the people around me were taught to hear?

I didn’t grow up in a home where deep emotional conversations were encouraged. Mine was a highly religious household, one where fear often shaped understanding, and where anything that didn’t fit neatly into faith could feel dangerous to explore. There were rules for morality, expectations for behavior, and certainty about salvation but very little language for emotional complexity.

Therapy wasn’t something I understood as a real option. If it was acknowledged at all, it was often framed as something unnecessary, worldly, or meant for people outside of faith. Struggle was something you prayed through. Confusion was something you suppressed. Pain was something you endured.

So I did what many people do when they are never taught how to process what lives inside them:

I adapted.

I became a people pleaser.
I withdrew.
I became privately irritable and publicly functional.
I shut down when I didn’t feel accepted.
I exhausted myself trying to earn belonging.
I worked constantly, not just for survival, but because work became one of the few places I could observe people, study connection, and try to understand life itself.

I was navigating the world like an alien- watching how others interacted, how they seemed to move with confidence through emotional terrain I couldn’t map.

Behind the curtain, I was deeply sad.

Lonely.

Confused.

Overwhelmed by emotions I didn’t yet have the language to identify, let alone express.

Nobody saw how much pain I was in.

And perhaps even more heartbreakingly…

I’m not sure I fully saw it either.

Because not all suffering is obvious.

And not all suffering is hidden intentionally.

Sometimes suffering is untranslated, even to ourselves.

When you spend years without the tools, permission, or safety to examine your inner world, pain does not simply disappear.

It adapts.

It disguises itself.

It becomes overachievement.
Perfectionism.
Numbness.
People pleasing.
Workaholism.
Withdrawal.
Exhaustion.
Silence.

For years, I wasn’t intentionally concealing my pain.

I simply did not know how to explain what I had never been taught to understand.

How do you speak wounds you cannot name?

How do you form words for grief that has lived in your body longer than your vocabulary?

How do you explain that your heart feels shattered when you’ve spent your life being taught to present yourself as whole?

Life does not stop because you are in pain.

It does not pause because you are sad, confused, or emotionally drowning.

Life keeps moving.

And so I kept moving too.

I kept going because I thought that was what survival required.

And in many ways, it was.

But survival and healing are not always the same thing.

For much of my life, I wasn’t healing.

I was enduring.

I was functioning.

I was disappearing slowly, quietly, in ways that didn’t raise alarms because they were socially acceptable.

This is the silent language of pain:
The loss of joy.
The retreat from connection.
The inability to articulate what is wrong.
The smile that conceals confusion.
The exhaustion no amount of sleep can fix.
The self that grows smaller in order to remain safe.

Sometimes the deepest cries for help are not loud.

They are not dramatic.

They do not always sound like breakdowns.

Sometimes, they sound like silence.

Sometimes, they look like someone gradually disappearing from themselves.

Looking back, I can now see how much I was carrying long before I ever had words for it.

I can see the depression.
The fear.
The emotional isolation.
The fractured identity.
The longing to be understood.

I can also see something else:

Perseverance.

Because even without language, I kept searching.

Even without guidance, I kept trying to understand.

Even without safety, some part of me kept reaching for truth.

Healing, for me, has not simply been about confronting pain.

It has been about learning its language.

Learning that my silence was not emptiness.
My withdrawal was not failure.
My people pleasing was not weakness.
My confusion was not brokenness.

They were symptoms.

Signals.

Evidence of a life lived without the tools to fully know itself.

And perhaps that is why compassion matters so deeply.

Because the question should not always be:

“Why didn’t you say something?”

Sometimes the better question is:

“What were you trying to say in the only ways you knew how?”

There are countless people moving through this world carrying pain they cannot yet translate.

People surviving wounds they do not have language for.

People who do not need shame for their silence…

But understanding.

Because sometimes the deepest cries for help are not loud.

They are the gradual disappearance of someone who once felt alive.

I used to think I understood what freedom was.

No debt.
A place to live.
A car that worked.
A life that felt stable.

I thought that meant I was free.

But now I’m not so sure.

Because everything we call “freedom”
is still tied to something.

A job you have to keep.
Bills that never stop.
Systems that decide whether you get to stay or not.

Even the things you “own”
come with conditions.

A house still requires taxes.
A car still costs money to maintain.
Utilities don’t stop just because you need a break.

So what is that, really?

Is that freedom?

Or just a version of stability
that works…until it doesn’t?

Because the more I look at it-

the more it feels like we’re not actually chasing freedom.

We’re chasing a version of life
where the system works well enough
that we don’t have to think about it.

And when it does…

it feels like freedom.

But it isn’t.

It’s just functioning.

Because real freedom would mean:

no conditions.
no constant exchange.
no underlying dependency on something outside of you.

And that’s not how any of this is built.

You can pay off your house
and still owe taxes.

You can own your car
and still need money to keep it.

You can build a life that looks secure

and still be one shift away from losing access to it.

So the question isn’t:

how do you become free?

It’s:

was freedom ever actually on the table?

Or were we always working toward something
that only feels like freedom…
as long as everything keeps working?

Do you recognize “home” when you feel it?

Or do you only recognize it once it’s gone?

People talk about home like it’s a place.

An address.
A space.
A set of walls you return to at the end of the day.

I’ve had places that looked like home.

Apartments that were quiet.
Spaces that were ours.
Rooms that held our things.

And in those places…

there were moments that actually felt like it.

Jon (spouse) has always had a way of making wherever we lived feel warm.

Cozy.
Inviting.

People would come over and say they could feel it-
like they could finally relax.

We built that.

Homemade pizza on the weekends.

Not just throwing something together-

everything from scratch.

The night before, we’d make the sauce.

Blending oregano, basil, red pepper flakes, fresh garlic-
letting it sit long enough for everything to come together.

The day of, I’d make the dough.

Kneading it until it felt right.

Jon would take over from there.

Stretching the dough out,
picking the playlist,
dancing around like it was part of the process.

Then I’d add the sauce.
The toppings.
Getting the balance just right.

And somewhere in there-

a five-minute dance party.

Every time.

Didn’t matter where we were.

That was part of it too.

That felt like home.

So I know it exists.

We used to housesit.

Moving from one home to another-
spaces that weren’t ours.

And still…

we made them feel like they were.

We brought our things with us.

I’d set up the kitchen the way I liked it.
Jon would get the TV and gaming space just right.

We fell into our rhythms.

The same meals.
The same routines.
The same small things that made everything feel familiar.

It didn’t matter where we were.

We still created something that felt like home.

Because we were the constant.

Which is what makes this harder to understand.

Because if home is a place-

then I don’t have one right now.

We’re in an RV.

Moving.
Parking.
Leaving.
Trying to stay somewhere just long enough to breathe
before being told it’s time to go again.

But even here…

pieces of it still show up.

Not the walls.
Not the stability.

But the way we exist inside it.

People also say home is the people around you.

That it’s connection.
Support.
Someone you can call when things fall apart.

I used to believe that more broadly.

But I’ve learned there’s a difference between being loved
and being supported.

And those two things don’t always exist in the same place.

Except…

sometimes they do.

Jon has always shown up.

Even in this.
Especially in this.

So if home is people-

maybe it’s not everyone.

Maybe it’s just the ones who stay.

Then there’s the version of home that people don’t always talk about.

The one that lives in your body.

The feeling of being able to exhale.

Of not bracing.
Of not waiting for something to shift or fall apart.

I don’t always recognize that feeling anymore.

But there are moments,

small ones,

where something softens.

A laugh.
A shared look.
A familiar rhythm we’ve built over years.

And for a second-

it’s there again.

At some point, I started realizing…

maybe what I thought was “home”
wasn’t always what I thought it was.

Some of it was real.

Some of it was just familiar.

And losing that-

even the parts that weren’t good-

still felt like losing something.

Because it was still something.

So now I’m here.

No fixed place.
No stability I can point to and say “this is secure.”

But I’m not completely without home.

Because somehow…

in the middle of all of this-

we’re still here.

Together.

Still making space for small moments.
Still finding ways to laugh.
Still creating something that feels like ours.

So maybe home isn’t as simple as I thought.

Maybe it’s not just a place.
Or all people.
Or a constant feeling.

Maybe it’s something you build,
and carry,
and sometimes lose pieces of,

but not all of it.

So now I’m asking something different.

Not just:

Do you recognize “home” when you feel it?

But-

Can you still recognize it
when almost everything else is gone?

Because I think I’m starting to.

We don’t always have a place.

But without a doubt…

we still have the dance.

Is it performative to want to be positive?

To want to share something real…but not too real.
Not too heavy.
Not too uncomfortable.

Something honest…but still palatable.

Because I can feel myself doing it.

Trying to shape my reality into something people can sit with.
Trying to soften the edges so it doesn’t scare anyone off.

But the truth is-

I’m not okay.

And I don’t know how to write that
without feeling like I’m breaking some unspoken rule.

There are two narratives living in me right now.

One that wants to tell the truth.
And one that wants everyone to feel okay reading it.

One that says:
this is what my life actually looks like
this is how bad it’s gotten
this is what it feels like to be here

And another that says:
don’t say it like that
that’s too much
that will make people uncomfortable
that will make them leave

And I don’t know how to hold both.

Because they don’t always coexist.

I can’t pretend to be okay when I’m not.

I can’t write “love and light”
when I feel like I’m dying inside.

I can’t soften something
that isn’t soft.

And at the same time-

I don’t want to push people away.
I don’t want to be too much.
I don’t want to say something
that makes someone close the tab.

So what am I supposed to do with that?

How do you tell the truth
when the truth might cost you connection?

How do you show reality
when reality isn’t something people want to look at?

Where is the balance?

What’s real?

And who will still be here
after I stop trying to make it easier to read?

It was one of those early June days in Chattanooga- the kind where the air already felt a little too thick, like summer was warming up in the background but hadn’t fully committed yet. Warm, slightly sticky, just unstable enough to match the emotional state of a high school hallway on the last day of school.

Sophomore year. Done.

Time to say goodbye to friends, make vague promises about staying in touch, and mentally prepare for a summer that would mostly revolve around whichever extended family member had a pool.

Priorities.

Fashion at the time was a t-shirt under a flannel- part style, part comfort, part identity crisis. And walking those halls, I was a confident, fully-formed 4’11”.

Confident might be generous. But I committed to it.

My best friend? Already well over 6 feet.

We were a spectacle. The odd couple in its purest form. Walking side by side looked less like friendship and more like a social experiment.

I said my goodbyes, climbed into the family van, and before the door even shut, Matchbox Twenty was already playing like it had somewhere to be. Windows down, music up…off I went to start what I assumed would be a completely normal summer.

I packed my clothes like I always did- ready for an epic break. I worked during the school year, so summer was mine. Freedom. Pools. Late nights. Absolutely no responsibilities beyond deciding which relative’s house had the best snacks.

And in my case, whoever had the coldest RC Cola.

But this summer didn’t go according to plan.

Because somewhere between the pool, All My Children, and aggressively unnecessary amounts of baking…

my body chose violence.

Growing pains had always sounded like one of those vague things adults said. Something metaphorical. Something manageable.

Not this.

I shot up from 4’11” to 5’8” in three months.

Three.

Months.

That’s not growth. That’s a hostile takeover.

I didn’t sleep. Not really. Walking hurt. Sleeping hurt. Existing felt like my bones were actively renegotiating their contract without my consent. I spent more time lounging by the pool than swimming- not out of laziness, but because standing felt like a personal attack.

And when I wasn’t horizontal, I was deep in my stories- fully committed to All My Children like the emotional stability of Pine Valley was somehow tied to my own. My aunt enabled it. Encouraged it, even. Honestly, she may have been the only one who understood that I was going through something…transformational.

Also, for reasons I still can’t explain, I baked. A lot.

Like that was somehow going to help.

Turns out there are at least 47 different ways to make chocolate chip cookies, and I felt personally responsible for discovering all of them.

None of which slowed down what was happening to my skeleton.

By the end of the summer, I wasn’t just different, I was unrecognizable.

I came home, walked in the door, and my mom took one look at me and immediately went into full panic mode.

Because not a single piece of clothing I owned fit anymore.

Not one.

Pants became capris. Shirts became crop tops. Nothing about this transition was optional.

And that wasn’t even the most shocking part.

My voice had dropped what I can only estimate to be six octaves.

Overnight, I went from “excuse me?” to “hello.”

It was…jarring.

I wasn’t the runt who left in June.

I came back a junior. Taller. Louder. Slightly confused. Mildly traumatized. But undeniably…upgraded.

Walking back into school that fall felt like a reveal moment no one had prepared for.

No announcement. No warning.

Just…new version unlocked.

My best friend saw me, paused, and just stared.

Somewhere between disbelief and absolute delight.

Because finally…

he didn’t have to look all the way down to talk to me anymore.

I’m in a strange space right now.

Not because I don’t know who I am-

but because I can’t fully live it yet.

I came out.

That part is real.

That part didn’t change anything internally.

If anything, it clarified everything.

But externally?

I’m still navigating a version of me
that doesn’t fully match what I feel.

I look in the mirror
and see something familiar…

but not accurate.

Close enough to recognize.
Not close enough to feel like me.

I post photos of myself
and they’re real…

but they’re not complete.

Sometimes I share what I might look like
after transition.

Sometimes I don’t.

Because I don’t fully know
how to exist between those two realities.

I’m here…

but I’m also not there yet.

And it’s not about uncertainty.

It’s not confusion.

It’s limitation.

Resources.
Stability.
Timing.

Things that have nothing to do with identity-

but somehow control how it gets expressed.

So I’m sitting in this space
between what I know
and what I can actually live.

And it’s harder than I expected.

Finding yourself with barriers
is different than finding yourself freely.

Expressing yourself with limitations
is different than becoming fully.

There’s a quiet kind of emptiness in that.

Not because I don’t know who I am-

but because I can’t fully be seen as her yet.

And that does something to you.

It leaves you slightly on edge.

Slightly disconnected.

Like you’re moving through your own life
without fully landing in it.

I don’t feel lost.

I feel… paused.

Like I’m standing between two versions of myself-

not unsure of either one-

just unable to fully step into one yet.

I’m in the in-between.

Where you know exactly who you are-

and still have to wait
for your life to catch up to it.

I think one of the hardest things for me to face
has been how I moved through the world for so many years-

believing what people said.

I believed love meant something.

I believed words meant something.

When someone said
“I love you”
or
“I’m here for you”
I thought it held.

I believed that a hug meant safety.

That being welcomed meant I belonged.

That having somewhere to go
meant I was cared for.

And for a long time,
that was my reality.

Or at least-

that’s how I understood it.

What I didn’t understand then
was that I was navigating all of this
without knowing I was neurodivergent.

I didn’t know I processed things differently.

I didn’t know I took words more literally.
That I expected consistency.
That when someone said something,
I believed they meant it.

I didn’t know
that the way I loved
wasn’t always the way love was given back.

Because my love was real.

I showed up.

I cared deeply.
I wanted people to feel safe, seen, supported.

I sacrificed.
I adjusted.
I made sure the people around me were okay.

Not because I was trying to earn anything.

Because I thought that was what it meant
to be human.

I thought that if I lived that way-

kindness, care, presence-

that I would be held too.

Not in a transactional way.

Just…in a human way.

The past few years have shown me something different.

That love can be conditional.

That words don’t always hold
when things get uncomfortable.

That “I’m here for you” can disappear
the moment it’s actually needed.

That hugs can be performative-

a gesture with nothing underneath it.

And that realization doesn’t just create grief.

It creates confusion.

Because now I’m left asking questions
I never had to ask before.

When did everything become so individual?

When did compassion come with a cost?

When did it stop being okay to fall apart?

And somewhere in all of that-

something shifted in me.

It’s no longer just the grief of not being held.

It’s what comes after.

Because now…

I don’t trust it.

I don’t trust the words.

I don’t trust the gestures.

I don’t trust the feeling of being held.

Because I don’t know what’s real anymore.

Is this person holding me because they care?

Or because it makes them feel like a good person?

Is this support real-

or is it performative?

Is there something underneath it?

Or is it going to disappear
the moment it becomes inconvenient?

And that uncertainty changes everything.

Because now, being held doesn’t feel safe.

It feels dangerous.

Not because I don’t want it.

But because I’ve experienced what happens
when it isn’t real.

So I keep parts of myself contained.

I stay composed.

I don’t fully fall apart in front of people.

Because somewhere in me-

there’s a belief that if I do,

I’ll lose even more than I already have.

And that’s the part that’s hard to admit.

I don’t just grieve the absence of being held.

I fear it.

I don’t trust other people to do it.

And I don’t trust myself to know
if it’s real when they try.

So I live in this tension now-

between wanting to be held
and not believing it’s safe.

And I don’t have a clean answer for that.

Just the awareness that something in me changed-

when I realized
that the way I loved
wasn’t the way the world always works.

I don’t know who I am anymore.

Not in a dramatic way.

In a quiet, honest way.

Like something I’ve been relying on my whole life
isn’t there anymore-

and now there’s just… space.

I’m starting to realize the mask
was never something I put on.

It’s something I became.

I didn’t learn how to be myself.

I learned how to:
adjust,
manage,
support,
keep things steady.

I learned how to be who I needed to be
to keep things okay.

And the part that’s hard to sit with is this-

I still do it.

Even now.
Even when no one is watching.

I can feel it happening in real time.

The instinct to smooth things over.
To make things easier.
To take up less space.

To make sure everything feels okay…
even if I don’t.

Even with Jon.

The person closest to me.

I still catch myself:

• managing the emotional space

• trying to support in ways that feel “right” to me

• putting him before myself without even thinking about it

Not because he’s asking me to-

but because it’s what I know how to do.

So when people say,
“just be yourself”

I don’t even know what that means.

Because what if there isn’t a version of me
that exists outside of survival?

What if everything I’ve been
was shaped by what I needed to be
to make it through?

And when you add in everything else-

the lack of support,
the absence of people who stayed,
the reality of being left to figure things out on your own-

it’s hard not to start believing something else too.

That you’re replaceable.

That if you mattered more,
someone would have shown up.

I still feel that.

More than I want to admit.

But I’m starting to question it.

Because maybe what I’ve experienced
is people not showing up-

not proof that I don’t matter.

I don’t have an answer for any of this.

I don’t know who I am yet.

I just know-

I can see it now.

The moments where I disappear.
The ways I adjust.
The instinct to make myself smaller
so everything else can stay okay.

And maybe that’s where this starts.

Not with becoming someone new-

but with noticing…
what was never actually me.

From the outside, we look fine.

That’s the problem.

If you saw us for five minutes, you would probably think we’re okay. You would see two people in an RV, maybe assume we’re traveling, figuring things out, making it work.

You wouldn’t see what it actually takes to get through a single day.

Every morning starts with a check-in.

Not the casual kind. Not “good morning” or “how did you sleep.”

From 8:30 to 10:30am, we check in every 30 minutes. Through text. Every morning. Because there have been mornings where I wasn’t…here.

Three times in six months, I woke up and disappeared.
Not by choice. Not with awareness.

Dissociative fugue states.

No warning. No plan. Just gone.

So now we check. Because if we don’t, we don’t know what the day is going to be.

That’s how our days begin.

Most days, we don’t leave.

Not because we don’t want to. Because we can’t.

Going out- into a grocery store, even for a pickup order- will wipe us out for days. The sensory overload, the energy it takes to be around people, the emotional heaviness of cities… it’s not something we can just push through.

So, we stay in.

And when we do have to go out, it becomes a full operation.

We plan everything. Gas. Propane. Water for the RV tank. How long we’ll be out. What we need. What we can skip. How quickly we can get back to wherever we’re parked so we can regulate again.

Nothing is casual. Nothing is easy.

Every day is calculation.

How much propane is left. Whether the generator will hold. If the tires look okay. If there’s new damage on the RV. How long we’ve been parked in the same place and whether we’re going to get a knock from a forest ranger telling us we have to move.

We’re not even supposed to be driving medically. So, every time we do, it’s a risk we’ve already decided we don’t have another option for.

There are no coffee outings. No wandering through stores. No date nights. No breaks.

Just us. And the RV.

And then…there’s the system.

Every day is reaching out. Emails to organizations. Applications. Forms. Waiting. Hoping someone responds with something that resembles help.

If they respond at all.

And when they do, it’s more paperwork.

More proving that you are worthy of help. Worthy of humanity.

Today I had an interview for Cash Aid. Emergency funds.

Maybe $900 a month total. For two people.

We got denied.

Because my last disability payment came through the same month we applied- even though it was a back payment that they delayed for almost three months. That money was already gone. Already accounted for.

There’s no humanity in that. Just paperwork and liability.

$900 a month for two people isn’t support. It’s just stringing you along below baseline and calling it help.

People assume we can just work remotely.
That if I can write like this, I can hold a job.

I’ve applied. For years.
Not a single call back.

And even if there was- this isn’t something I can sustain on a schedule. Not like this. Not with everything it takes just to get through a day.

There is no version of employment that accounts for disappearing without warning.

We are in a mutual caregiver failure:
Two people who both need support, trying to keep each other afloat without it.

Most days, it’s just sending emails into a void and hoping someone human answers.

There are also parts of this life that people don’t want to hear.

But they’re real.

We poop in bags and throw them away when we travel out because we can’t afford dump stations and they’re not always accessible. Sometimes, if we have the energy, we go outside in the woods. But even that takes more effort than we have most days.

We don’t shower often. Not because we don’t care. Because it takes water. Propane. Energy we don’t have.

Our clothes have holes in them. We wear the same things over and over because replacing them isn’t a priority when survival is on the line.

We eat the same meals every day to keep the budget tight. And when we move, we hope we can find our safe foods again- for regulation, for gut health, for stability in at least one area of our lives.

Jon (my spouse) usually sleeps later than I do.

Sleep isn’t really sleep for him anymore. It’s broken. Shallow. Disrupted by stress, by gut issues, by the reality that safety doesn’t exist right now.

My disappearances made that worse.

So, while he’s trying to rest, I’m checking everything.

The outside of the RV. The propane levels. The tires. Any sign that something else is about to go wrong.

And then I sit down and write.

Because it’s the only thing that feels remotely normal.

We fight.

Oftentimes, its once a day.

Not because we don’t love each other. Because we’re exhausted. Because we don’t feel safe. Because we can’t believe we’re still here…still in this…with no real support.

We fight because we’re trying to hold it together and there’s nothing holding us.

We find our way back to each other, but that doesn’t erase what this is doing to us.

A day in the life isn’t a series of events.

It’s a loop.

A long, stretched-out purgatory where nothing changes and nothing gets better.

Yes, we laugh sometimes. Yes, we hold each other. Yes, there are moments where we can breathe.

But that doesn’t cancel out the rest of it.

It doesn’t mean we’re okay.

It doesn’t mean we don’t wake up every day wishing this would end.

We’re not asking for luxury.

We’re asking for basic human needs.

A place to take our shoes off and know we don’t have to leave.

A bed that isn’t temporary.

A shower we don’t have to calculate.

A washer and dryer that doesn’t involve hauling our entire life into a laundromat and hoping the machines work.

A door that feels like ours.

A place to exhale.

A place to be human again.

Because this?

This isn’t living.

This is surviving something that doesn’t seem to end.

And we are so tired.

I had a conversation recently that I haven’t been able to shake.

Not because it was hostile.
Not because it was aggressive.

But because of what it revealed.

We were talking about empathy.

About why people will go out of their way to help animals-
rescue them, donate to them, advocate for them-
but struggle to show that same level of care toward other people.

The response I got was honest.

People have hurt her.
Deeply.

Animals feel safe.
Consistent.
Loyal.

Humans, on the other hand, are unpredictable.
Capable of manipulation.
Capable of harm.

None of that is untrue.

That’s what makes this harder to sit with.

Because somewhere inside that truth…

something shifts.

Pain becomes belief.
Belief becomes generalization.
Generalization becomes distance.

We start to believe:

People can’t be trusted.
People will take advantage.
People will hurt you if you let them.

And slowly…

we stop seeing individuals.

We start seeing categories.

The homeless person isn’t someone with a story.

They become a risk.
A possibility of manipulation.
A problem to avoid.

And from the outside, that shift can look small.

But from the inside…

you feel it.

You feel what it’s like to be looked at
through a lens shaped by someone else’s pain.

When you’re already struggling,
already trying to hold your life together in ways most people don’t understand-

that distance matters.

That hesitation matters.

That assumption matters.

Because empathy doesn’t disappear.

It becomes selective.

And the people who need it the most
are often the ones most affected by its absence.

I’m not saying people are wrong for protecting themselves.

I’m not saying trauma doesn’t change how you move through the world.

It does.

I’ve lived that too.

But there’s a difference between protecting yourself
and deciding who is worthy of care.

Pain explains behavior.

But it doesn’t justify the way we stop seeing each other.

Because the truth is-

the people you’re afraid of
might be the same people who were hurt in ways
that led them exactly where they are now.

And when we reduce them to a category-

we erase everything that made them human in the first place.

You don’t have to trust everyone.
You don’t have to feel safe with everyone.

But if we lose the ability to see each other as human-

then something much bigger breaks.

And I think we’re closer to that than most people realize.

There’s this idea that once you leave something,
it’s over.

That freedom is clean.
That it’s immediate.
That once you walk away, you’re no longer connected to what you left behind.

But that hasn’t been my experience.

Because freedom doesn’t erase attachment.

It just gives you the ability to see it.

I had this image in my head-

of breaking out of a cage.

Not gently.
Not gracefully.

Breaking.

Forcing my way out of something that had held me for a long time.

And then…

turning around.

Because that’s the part no one talks about.

The moment after you leave something-
but before it fully leaves you.

The cage is still there.

Cold.
Unmoved.

Steel bars-
the kind that don’t bend,
the kind that held me exactly where I was
for longer than I want to admit.

And inside it?

Pieces of me.

My family…
still standing there,
still holding the version of me they understood.

Friends who loved the version of me
that never asked for too much.
The one who laughed easily.
The one who stayed on the surface.

The version of me that worked constantly-
because being productive meant being worthy.
Because if I stopped,
I might have had to feel something I wasn’t ready to face.

The people pleaser.
The peacekeeper.
The one who kept everything smooth
so no one would leave.

My masks…
lined up like options I used to choose from
depending on who I needed to be.

And underneath all of it-

the shame.

Quiet.
Heavy.
Familiar.

Some of it was hurting me.
Some of it was keeping me alive.
And some of it…
I couldn’t tell the difference anymore.

That’s the part that messes with your head.

Because leaving doesn’t mean it stops pulling.

It doesn’t mean the patterns disappear.
It doesn’t mean the identity you built inside that space just dissolves.

It means you can finally see it.

See what you were inside of.

See how you adapted to it.

See what you became in order to survive it.

And if I’m being honest-

some of it still feels like home.

Not because it was good.

But because it was known.

Because I understood how to exist there.

Because I knew the rules.

Out here?

There are no rules.

No structure.

No clear identity yet.

Just space.

And truth.

And the quiet realization that I don’t fully know who I am outside of what I left.

That’s the uncomfortable middle.

Where you’ve left-

but you’re still separating.

Where you can see the cage clearly…
but part of you still reaches for it.

Not because you want to go back.

But because it’s familiar.

Because it shaped you.

Because it held a version of you that existed for a long time.

And this is the part that matters:

I’m not pretending that version of me never existed.

I’m not rewriting it to make this cleaner.

I’m not calling it all bad just to make leaving easier.

I’m acknowledging it.

And choosing to leave anyway.

That’s what freedom actually looks like.

Not a clean break.

Not a perfect transformation.

But standing outside the cage…
with those same bars still in view-

seeing everything that’s still inside it-

and deciding, consciously,

not to go back.

The most radical thing I ever did
was stop assuming my body was the problem.

For years, I was told some version of the same thing:

“You can’t blame a place.”
“Everywhere has its issues.”
“You’re just projecting.”
“You need to work on yourself.”

And for a long time, I believed that.

So I turned inward.

I questioned myself.
I tried to regulate.
I tried to adjust.
I tried to push through.

Because if the problem wasn’t the environment,
then it had to be me.

But the truth is-

this didn’t start with me.

Jon (my spouse) was feeling it long before I ever did.

He’s always been more sensitive to things
I didn’t understand at the time.

More aware.
More attuned.

You could call him an empath,
if we’re using language people recognize.

He tried to explain it to me.

The way certain places felt.
The way energy sat in a room.
The way environments could drain him
before anything even happened.

And I didn’t get it.

I was still living inside my own version of reality.

Gleefully ignorant.
Moving through life as a free spirit-
but really just staying inside the boxes I knew how to survive in.

Performing.
Complying.
Staying busy enough not to question anything too deeply.

So when he spoke about it,
I brushed past it.

Not out of cruelty-
but because I didn’t have the awareness
to understand what he was trying to show me.

I regret that more than I can say.

Because he wasn’t wrong.

I just wasn’t ready to hear it yet.

And then something shifted.

The version of reality I had been living in,
the one that kept everything contained and explainable,

started to crack.

And when it did,

I felt it too.

Not intellectually.
Not as a concept.

In my body.

The heaviness of a city
that didn’t make sense on paper.

The way a house could feel off
without anything visibly wrong.

The way someone parking next to us
could shift everything-

not because of what they were doing,
but because of what they were carrying.

And for the first time,

I didn’t override it.

I didn’t explain it away.

I didn’t tell myself I was imagining things.

I listened.

And that’s when everything changed.

Because once you start listening to your nervous system,
you can’t unhear it.

And suddenly, the question isn’t:

“What’s wrong with me?”

It becomes:

“What if my body has been telling the truth this whole time?”

That’s a much harder question to sit with.

Because it means the problem wasn’t your sensitivity.

It means the problem might have been
where you were.

Not in a way that’s easy to explain.
Not in a way that fits into neat, logical language.

But in a way your body understands
before your mind ever catches up.

That’s the part people dismiss.

Because if they can’t see it,
measure it,
or explain it-

they assume it isn’t real.

So they tell you to stay.
To adjust.
To work on yourself.
To stop blaming external things.

But what they don’t understand is-

sometimes your body is responding
to something you don’t have the language for yet.

And ignoring that doesn’t make you stronger.

It disconnects you from the one system
that’s trying to protect you.

I’ve been gaslit around this more times than I can count.

Made to feel dramatic.
Unstable.
Like I was the problem.

But I wasn’t breaking down.

I was responding.

And so was he.

He just felt it first.

My nervous system wasn’t the problem.

It was the only part of me
telling the truth.

I grew up in the church.

Not casually. Not occasionally.

My dad is a pastor.

Southern Baptist now. Other denominations before that.

So I didn’t just hear the teachings- I lived inside them.

I was taught to love people.
To care for the poor.
To show up for the broken.
To be kind.
To be compassionate.
To reflect something bigger than myself.

And I believed it.

I didn’t just sit in a pew.
I gave my time.
My energy.
My life to it.

I thought I understood what the church stood for.

Until I saw what it actually did.

There are things the church talks about constantly.

Sin.
Morality.
Right and wrong.

But there are also things it quietly absorbs.

Things it makes space for.
Things it learns to live with.

Adultery.
Divorce.
Pride.
Greed.
Dishonesty.

Not in theory.

In real life.

In families.
In leadership.
In the same communities that preach against them every week.

I didn’t know until I was an adult that my grandfather had an affair.

Not a mistake.
Not a moment.

Twenty-five years.

Twenty-five years of deception, hidden inside a family that stood firmly in its faith.

And when it was known?

Nothing broke.

No one was cast out.
No one was removed.
No emergency flights.
No moral intervention that tore the family apart.

It was absorbed.

Quietly.

But when I told the truth about who I am-

that I’m queer-

everything changed.

My parents got on a plane.
A red-eye flight.

Sat in front of me and told me everything I was doing wrong.
Everything I was “in sin” for.
Everything that needed to change.

And when I didn’t change?

They cut me out of their lives.

That’s the part that doesn’t leave you.

Not just the rejection.

But the contradiction.

I was taught to love people.
To care for the broken.
To extend grace.

But when it was my turn to be held-

there was no grace.

No compassion.
No second chance.
No attempt to understand.

Just a label.

A judgment.

A line drawn.

And this isn’t just my family.

That’s the harder truth.

This pattern exists everywhere inside the church.

Some things are treated as struggles.
Others are treated as identities that can’t be tolerated.

Some people are allowed to stay while they “work through it.”
Others are asked to leave simply for being honest.

I’ve spent a long time trying to make that make sense.

Trying to understand how a 25-year affair could be carried quietly-

but my existence couldn’t.

And the only answer I keep coming back to is this:

It was never just about sin.

It was about what they were willing to accept.

And once you see that…
you can’t unsee it.

Trust doesn’t usually break all at once.

It erodes.

Quietly. Repeatedly. Over time.

Sometimes it starts with something you were told to believe.

Something you held onto because you needed it to be true.

When I came out, I knew it was going to cost me.

I knew I might lose my family.
I knew I might lose people I loved.

That part wasn’t a surprise.

But I also believed something else.

I believed that even if I lost my biological family,
I would be held by another one.

That there was a community waiting-
one that understood, one that supported, one that showed up.

That’s what I saw.

That’s what was said.

That’s what was promised.

So I made the trade.

Not because I wanted to lose everything-
but because I believed I wouldn’t be alone on the other side of it.

And then… I was.

Not all at once.

Not in some dramatic, obvious way.

But in the quiet moments where support was supposed to exist
and didn’t.

In the absence.

In the silence.

In the realization that when things got real…
really real…

there wasn’t anyone there to hold it with me.

That’s where trust started to shift.

Because it’s one thing to lose people.

It’s another thing to believe you’re being held somewhere else…
and then find out you’re not.

And your brain doesn’t just ignore that.

It tries to make sense of it.

So it starts building patterns.

Maybe this isn’t real anywhere.
Maybe no one actually shows up.
Maybe every version of “community” is conditional.

Those thoughts feel extreme.

But they don’t come from nowhere.

They come from experience that hasn’t been contradicted.

And that’s the dangerous part.

Because I can sit here and say, logically,
that one experience doesn’t define an entire community.

I know that.

But my body doesn’t know that.

My body only knows what it’s lived.

And what I’ve lived is this:

We haven’t been held by anyone.

Not family.
Not friends.
Not community.

So now there’s this tension.

Between what I want to believe-
that connection is real, that support exists-

and what I’ve actually experienced.

That’s what makes trust complicated.

Because once it erodes,
it doesn’t just affect one relationship.

It changes how you see everything.

It makes you hesitate.

It makes you guard yourself.

It makes you question whether opening up
will just lead to the same outcome again.

And I hate that.

Because I don’t want to live closed off.

I don’t want to believe that no one can be trusted.

But I also can’t ignore what I’ve lived through.

So I’m somewhere in the middle.

Aware of how easily the mind creates walls
to stay safe…

and how hard it is to take them down
when they’ve been built for a reason.

It’s hard to trust what you’ve never actually experienced—
even if you were told it would be there.

Rest is supposed to feel like relief.

That’s what people say.

Take a break.
Slow down.
Get some rest.

As if rest is something your body will naturally accept.

As if stillness is safe.

But when you’ve lived in survival mode long enough,
rest doesn’t feel like relief.

It feels like exposure.

Because when you stop moving,
there’s nothing buffering you anymore.

No distraction.
No task.
No next step to focus on.

Just the reality of where you are.

And in that space, your mind doesn’t settle.

It scans.

What’s next?
What’s about to go wrong?
What did I miss?
What still needs to be handled?

Even when there’s nothing immediate to solve,
your body doesn’t believe it.

Because there’s always been something.

Rest starts to feel dangerous.

Not physically.

But psychologically.

Because you’ve learned that the moment you let your guard down,
something falls apart.

So instead of relaxing,
you hover.

Half-aware.
Half-braced.
Never fully at ease.

And then there’s the guilt.

Because even when you could rest,
it feels like you shouldn’t.

There’s always another call to make.
Another problem to solve.
Another thing that might help move things forward.

Rest feels irresponsible
when your entire life depends on staying ahead of the next problem.

So you stay in motion.

Not because you want to.
But because it feels safer than stopping.

And over time, your body forgets what real rest even feels like.

Not just sleep.

Not just sitting down.

But the kind of rest where your nervous system actually lets go.

That kind of rest starts to feel unfamiliar.

And anything unfamiliar
doesn’t feel safe.

So when people say,
“you should rest,”

what they don’t understand is-

I would.

If it felt safe to.

Because when you’ve lived in crisis long enough,
rest doesn’t feel like relief—
it feels like something you can’t afford.