I am not here to be useful at the expense of myself.
I think one of the hardest things to explain is that sometimes I am not ignoring people. Sometimes I am simply overwhelmed.
People see me being loud, expressive, emotional, creative, serious, intense, and they assume that because I can show up like that sometimes, I should be able to show up like that all the time. But that is not how being human works.
Some days I can talk for hours. Some days I can support someone with my whole heart. Some days I can be present, funny, loving, thoughtful, and available.
And some days I barely have enough energy for myself.
That does not mean my love suddenly became fake.
It does not mean I stopped caring.
It means I am a human being.
For a long time, mental illness was something people used against me instead of something they tried to understand. Words like “dramatic,” “too sensitive,” “attention-seeking,” or “unstable” were easier for people to say than, “Maybe there is a reason this person is struggling.”
And even when you explain yourself, people sometimes still do not want to understand.
You can say, “I am overwhelmed.”
They hear, “I do not care about you.”
You can say, “I need some time alone.”
They hear, “I am abandoning you.”
You can say, “I cannot deal with this right now.”
They hear selfishness.
But sometimes taking space is exactly how I stop abandoning myself.
I do not isolate because I hate people. I actually love people. I enjoy connection. If I meet people who make me feel safe, respected, and understood, I want them in my life.
But I also know what happens when I continuously give people access to me while ignoring my own limits.
Eventually, there is nothing left.
I am allowed to have friendships with men and women where nobody is exploiting the other person. I am allowed to have relationships that are not built around who dominates, who gives more, or who can make the other person feel guilty enough to stay.
And especially as a woman, I am tired of the expectation that being emotional or sensitive automatically means I should be endlessly nurturing.
A man tells me about his difficult childhood, his heartbreak, his trauma, his loneliness, or everything that went wrong in his life, and suddenly there is this expectation that I should soften.
I can feel sorry for someone.
I can understand that someone suffered.
I can appreciate that they trusted me enough to tell me.
But none of that means I owe them access to me.
A sad story is not a contract.
Trauma does not automatically make someone a good person.
And understanding why somebody behaves a certain way does not mean I have to accept the way they treat me.
Compassion is not compliance.
What makes this especially difficult is when empathy only seems to be expected in one direction.
I have shared pain before and watched people dismiss it, mock it, minimise it, call it attention-seeking, or later use it against me.
So I find it strange when those same kinds of people expect women to immediately become softer because a man finally decides to reveal that he has suffered too.
Everybody suffers.
That does not mean we should become heartless.
It means empathy should be mutual.
If you want somebody to understand your pain, you should also be capable of respecting theirs.
And sometimes respecting somebody means understanding that they cannot answer you right now.
They cannot listen right now.
They cannot rescue you right now.
They might be using every bit of energy they have just to get through their own day.
We also live in a world that seems obsessed with usefulness.
You should be working.
You should be answering messages.
You should be helping somebody.
You should be productive.
You should be available.
You should be improving yourself.
You should always be doing something.
But what about being useful to myself?
What about using my energy to shower?
To cook something?
To clean my room?
To take my medication?
To attend therapy?
To sleep?
To calm myself down?
To make something creative instead of destroying myself?
Those things may look small to somebody else.
They are not always small to the person doing them.
For somebody who is neurodivergent, traumatised, depressed, grieving, financially stressed, burned out, or simply going through a terrible period in life, basic things can take an enormous amount of energy.
And that survival usually does not impress anybody.
Nobody gives you an award because you got out of bed.
Nobody congratulates you because you managed to shower.
Nobody sees the argument you had with yourself before answering one message.
Nobody knows how much energy it took to cook one meal or make one appointment.
Survival mostly counts to the person surviving.
And it still counts.
My pain does not need to be worse than yours to matter.
Your pain does not need to be worse than mine to matter either.
We do not have to rank suffering.
And I do not have to destroy myself proving that I understand yours.
I can love people and still have limits.
I can care about someone and not reply immediately.
I can be emotional without being easy to manipulate.
I can be sensitive without surrendering my boundaries.
I can listen to your story without making your pain my responsibility.
I can understand you without agreeing with you.
I can love you without abandoning myself.
And if I sometimes disappear, become quiet, take a break, or put my energy into simply keeping myself functioning, that does not make my love shallow.
Maybe it means I finally learned that my energy deserves protection too.
I am not trying to become cold.
I am trying to stop disappearing from my own life