What It Means When A Guarded Girl Says, ‘I Don’t Do Personal’

When she says she can’t do personal, it’s nothing personal.

“I don’t do personal,” you hear her say. Only to find yourself disgusted at the way her eyes turn icy as she mutters those 4 words. You find yourself judging her and secretly condemning her for being a cold-hearted bitch.

But here’s the thing, you never saw her past scars, you never looked closely enough to see past that cold exterior, and you never cared to love her enough to break down her walls.

The moment the trigger is pulled, the shutters come down, and she locks herself back up.

What you see is a girl being apathetic and distant. What you don’t see is her heart breaking with every single word you utter, and the pain behind those once expressive deep, brown eyes. What you don’t see is the digging of her nails inside her palm, doing her best to control every tear threatening to spill. What you don’t see is her escaping from reality by desperately attempting to prevent herself from looking back at those memories.

Judge her all you want, but remember, hers is a heart that hasn’t been fully healed enough to go personal with you. Personal means that she’ll have to start scratching the scabs while hoping they don’t bleed.

To go personal means to feel.

To feel means to renege on her promise she made with herself. To renege on her promise means to go back to her old ways. And she never ever wants to go back to that cold, empty place.

Now, on the outside, she seems like an unblemished masterpiece, untouched, unafraid and bold.

Except she isn’t.

Behind the veneer of a childish grin, sparkling eyes when she smiles (genuine smiles that were trained), good grades, good school and good “friends”, all that’s left when she’s all alone are just floodgates of tears. And the tears are the one thing you’d never see.

On an ordinary day in the bathroom, she cries. When the pain becomes too raw, she breaks. All within the confines of a safe space, a space where no one sees her.

She doesn’t like personal because that’s what personal entails. It is her being a broken mess, so are you sure you can handle that? She’s doesn’t like personal because personal means telling you the truth about her life. And the truth is ugly, broken and fucked up. And to tell the truth means that she’d have to remember, to feel again and it fucking hurts.

So when she says she can’t do personal, it’s nothing personal, it’s just her guarding her heart once again as she tries to move on from the haunting past.