When love becomes performance, the soul starts screaming.
I didn’t want to see it.
Because if I really saw it—if I really let myself hear what my body had been screaming for years—I’d have to stop pretending. Stop hoping. Stop performing.
I’d have to tell the truth.
And let it be jagged.
So here it is.
I think I’m coming to the point where I see what I don’t want to see.
I’m asking to be seen. To be heard.
But I’m not seeing or hearing either of us.
He—my assumption—is trying to be seen as the imperfect man, doing his best.
He wants to be acknowledged for the work he’s done—personally and professionally.
He wants to be loved, honored, accepted, and protected for his own sensitive soul.
I want to be safe to be deeply, authentically me.
To be seen, heard, accepted, and protected for the highly sensitive, neurodivergent, imperfect person I am.
Trying my best to make him feel what he needs while not getting what I need.
He’s trying his best to make me feel what I need while not getting what he needs.
By not accepting him where he is, who he is, I’m increasing both of our pain.
We both are.
I’m not who he needs and wants.
Really, he thinks he does.
But it’s a projected image of me that he created.
And I want so badly for him to be the person I need and want.
I think we’ve both been trying for years.
Trying to be—
Trying to make—
The other person into the one we imagined.
Both of us contorting.
Shrinking, stretching, slipping into the wrong shape.
Trying to make it fit.
I said this erosion has been happening for 7 years.
That’s when I stopped drinking.
That’s when I took off the first mask.
That’s when I started seeing the ways we didn’t fit the “right” shapes.
That’s when I started to contort both of us—
Instead of numbing myself so I wouldn’t notice.
But my soul did.
The whispers grew louder.
Their tone, unbearable.
Begging me to listen.
I kept pushing them down.
Dismissing. Minimizing.
Even turning the blame on myself.
If only I were more healed.
More compassionate.
More trusting.
If only I could change my mind about the pain I was in…
Even when the whispers turned to screams, I covered my ears.
“He’s trying. He’s a good man.”
Even when I finally spoke up—
Just to release the pressure building inside me—
It wasn’t allowed.
“OK. That’s enough. It’s too much.”
Crawling out of my skin.
Wanting to leap from the truck.
The self-contortion is too much.
Doubting my feelings.
Doubting my inner voice.
Doubting my body’s cries for help.
I wanted him to be the person who saw me. Heard me. Accepted me.
I wanted him to protect me.
But he’s not.
I am.
And it’s time to step up.
To be the one who listens.
Who believes me.
Who protects the parts of me that keep screaming.
Me.
I’m the one.
I have to step up.
