Desirability converts ordinary choices into status reports other people read about themselves. Your yes feels like a promotion they can flaunt. Your no feels like a downgrade they need to defend against. In that environment, every boundary you set becomes emotionally loud, even when you whisper it.

When the pain is intense enough, you cease to be someone in the world. You become a body against the world. The bench beneath you becomes strange. The air seems distant. Language cracks under the pressure. Even your name starts to feel like someone else’s.

I walked away from a significant financial offer, enough to keep a roof over my head, enough to buy time, finish school, stabilize. I knew exactly what it would cost me. I did it anyway. Because I knew what signing would mean.

The absence of support transformed my struggles into a solitary battle, one that I had to face without the understanding or compassion that

My loneliness is not about the absence of others. It’s about the collapse of shared reality.