Just because you never hit me does not mean that what you did was benign and wholesome. The hurt you caused was more than skin deep.

Sometimes, we focus on saving others in order to distract ourselves from our own growth.

I am the truth, your karma, the revolt — I am the resistance, the pieces you tried to keep shattered, coming back together again.

“Never sacrifice your own personal growth at the expense of waiting for someone else to change.”

“My three-year-old daughter said daddy should leave because he made me sad.”

“I thought I could somehow fix things, that there was something I could do to help her.”

I’m still haunted by your hands, whispers on my skin that left permanent marks, almost like shadow scars.

I’ve had to overwrite every situation in which I’ve been hardwired to feel anxiety. Because of your game, I’ve had to relearn how to live my life.

He ties his words around you like a corset, fashioning you into his soulmate. Fast-forwarding intimacy on all levels, he plays the victim, weaving a sad story about betrayal by his previous partner who you will later come to learn is also a victim.

These pathological individuals walk among us every day in their false masks, often unseen and unnoticed because of how eerily normal they are.