I don’t feel like a warrior today. I didn’t rise with my head held high or wrap myself in the flag of healing. I laid there—head pounding, gut twisted, sleep-deprived. I didn’t journal, didn’t chant affirmations, didn’t try to alchemize the ache into gold. I just… existed.

The thing about emotional dysregulation is it doesn’t always look like screaming or sobbing. Sometimes it looks like silence. Like staring at the ceiling, wondering how you got here. Like feeling sick in your skin, not because of what was said, but because of what wasn’t felt or understood- because there was no connection or resolution.

Later, I moved through the day gently. I did what needed to be done—fed the kids, touched the earth, walked the neighborhood. I told myself I didn’t need to solve anything today. I just needed to be. I spent a lot of the day alone. The sun, soil, and silence held more compassion than more conversation ever could.

I knew there was a chance he thought I was hiding. Running. Avoiding.
But I wasn’t. I was regulating.
I was choosing to meet myself where I actually was, not where I was expected to be.

I grieved the closeness I thought we’d have. The tenderness I imagined we’d grow into.
I grieved the version of him I keep hoping will show up when I’m hurting.

When he checked in with me, I was honest. “I’m not doing great. I’m also not awful. I don’t want to talk. Thank you for making the effort to check in.” I knew if I tried, it would circle back to the same loop—the same argument about whether feelings are facts or choices. Whether needing compassion is weakness. Whether trauma responses are manipulation. I’ve been here before. I know how it ends. I wanted to let go of the desire to be understood, to connect, to feel without having to justify every feeling in order for it to be real, valued, and met with compassion.

There’s a version of me that wanted to try to talk it out. Again. But this version of me knows we would have spiraled into the same dynamic and had the same circular conversation. So, I didn’t engage. Not because I was hiding. But because I was choosing peace over proving my point. This time I didn’t cave to the desire to fix it with conversation. I stopped trying to prove that compassion is not coddling.

It’s not that I don’t care—it’s that I care too deeply to keep stepping into conversations that leave me aching. I’ve learned that pain doesn’t have to come wrapped in cruelty to do damage. Sometimes it arrives dressed as “truth,” or “authenticity,” or “just being real.” And while intentions matter, so does impact—and I tolerate far more than I truly can without completely neglecting my own feelings—and I usually do. I’m a fucking wizard at self-abandonment with a broken heart stuck together with little gold stars to prove it.

I didn’t want to shrink myself or gaslight myself out of feeling anything at all. I didn’t want to trap either of us in a box of my expectations. So I prayed.

I prayed that I’d stop needing and wanting him to understand.
I prayed that I could let go of my expectations of him and of me.
I prayed that I could let go of the resentment I feel for both of us.
I prayed I could love myself through the ache.
I prayed that he might one day understand how powerful and healing compassion can be.
I prayed that we would find the connection with one another that I know we both want.
And I prayed that if nothing changes, that I will stop hurting and stop taking it personally.

Because maybe healing isn’t about getting everyone to understand you and love you better.
Maybe it’s about loving yourself so well that when someone else can’t, it no longer becomes an indictment of your worth.

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✨ A Tiny Reflection on Self-Abandonment

SereniTea once said, “Connection can’t come at the cost of self-abandonment.”
And here’s what I’ve come to understand:

Self-abandonment doesn’t mean you stop trying.
It means you stop shrinking, begging, or expecting to be understood.
It means you stop trading your emotional safety to avoid judgement or being misunderstood.

You can still love deeply and want closeness.
But when the same hurt repeats, and you keep handing over your softest parts hoping they’ll be held with care—and they’re not—that’s not connection.
That’s contortion.
That’s madness.
That’s dependance.

So today, I didn’t contort.
I didn’t try to be understood.
I didn’t try to convince anyone that my hurt matters.

I just told myself the truth: “That didn’t feel good.”
And I let that be enough.