This piece is part of my personal healing. I wrote it to process something I couldn’t quite say out loud. I’m sharing it because sometimes writing is the only way I can feel my way through the fog. It’s raw. It’s vulnerable. It’s not wrapped up in a lesson, and it doesn’t have a clean ending. It just is. If you’ve ever felt unseen, disrespected, or deeply disappointed by someone you let close, I hope you feel less alone reading this.

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I don’t even know where to start.

I feel disappointed. I feel disrespected. I feel dumbfounded. And maybe that’s what hurts the most. I wasn’t guarded. I wasn’t expecting the blow. I was open. I was soft. I let myself be vulnerable.

It hit me hard.

It was supposed to be light. Nothing deep. No big expectations. Just time shared between two people who know each other. And because of our history, I thought that came with some basic level of respect. But it didn’t.

It felt cruel. Deliberate. Calculated, even. And that’s a hard thing to admit. That someone I’ve let close, someone who knows me, might have actually wanted to hurt me. Wanted to watch me flinch. Wanted to see if I’d break.

And I did.

I broke. Quietly. In the car. In the shower. In the silence after everything went down.

Everyone I’ve told has said the same thing. He wanted you to be upset. He wanted a rise out of you. And honestly, yea. The blatant callousness of his actions scream he was trying to trigger something.

What’s messing with my head is how unbothered he was initially. How detached. Like there’s no guilt. No reflection. No “I’m sorry, I see how I hurt you.” Nothing. He literally said he doesn’t see where he’s wrong.

And that right there

That did something to me.

I wasn’t seen, really.

I wasn’t valued.

Not as a whole person.

This has stirred up something deep. Like that old wound I thought I had buried is wide open again. That feeling of being reduced to a body. Like my worth lives in what I can give, not in who I am. Like I’m disposable. Replaceable. Convenient until I’m complicated.

It’s not just the way he treated me in that moment. It’s the way it made everything else resurface. Every time I’ve ever felt like someone was only interested in me when I was quiet, cooperative, or available. Every time I’ve felt like my value was only tied to how useful I was or how easily I could be accessed. Every time someone didn’t care what happened to my heart as long as they got what they came for.

This is about dignity. About being looked at and not truly seen. About being spoken to and still feeling unheard. About offering softness to someone and realizing they had no intention of holding it gently.

It’s the way he looked at me after. The way he talked to me. There was no care there. No tenderness. Just coldness. Just distance. And I started spiraling, asking myself what did I do to deserve that.

But I didn’t do anything.

And I know that.

And I still don’t feel better.

There’s this deep sense of shame sitting on my chest. Like I should’ve known better. Like I should’ve protected myself. And I hate that I still wanted to be seen by him even after the hurt. That’s hard to admit.

I keep running through the details in my head, and none of it makes sense unless I accept the fact that he did it on purpose. And I don’t want to accept that. I don’t want to believe that someone I let that close could treat me like this and feel nothing.

But here I am. Sitting in it.

Trying not to shut down.

Trying not to believe that this is what I attract.

And I’m still handling him with kindness. Still giving him grace. Still responding like he didn’t just make me question everything I thought we were at least capable of coexisting as.

All my friends are angry. They’re telling me I should return the energy. Cut him off. Match what he gave. But I don’t want to. And I hate that.

I hate that I still want to be decent to someone who wasn’t decent to me. I hate that I’m still being careful with his feelings when he wasn’t careful with mine. I hate that even now, I’m the one holding the weight of being the bigger person.

And I don’t know what that says about me.

Does it mean I’m weak? Or does it mean I’m loving?

Does it mean I’m afraid of being angry?

Does it mean I still have hope?

I don’t know.

But I do recognize this had to happen.

I see now that it might’ve been allowed to happen to open my eyes on a spiritual level.

And the more I sit with it, the more I realize it might not have been deliberate. Maybe he didn’t set out to hurt me. But his actions still show something deeper. Whatever he’s battling in his own life won’t allow us to coexist in peace. His dysfunction doesn’t leave room for his love.

Can he stand my light? Is his ego too big to see me as human? Because if he did, if he truly saw me, it would force him to face himself. And maybe that’s what he’s been avoiding all along.

So the kindness feels necessary.

But I know he doesn’t deserve it.

And still, I give it.

Not for him, but maybe for me. Maybe because if I don’t stay true to who I am in this, then I lose more than just the illusion of what we were.

But what I do know is that it doesn’t feel good.

It feels lonely.

It feels like I’m bleeding and still trying to clean up the mess he made.

Because this is too much to carry on my own. I needed to write this.. 

right now, this is all I’ve got.