Exhibit A: Me

My therapist asked for my journal entries again. She does this around this time every month like clockwork, like she’s checking the tide to see if it’s rising or receding, measuring the quiet shifts in me that no one else knows how to read, and I hand them over like evidence… like exhibits in a case I didn’t realize I was building against myself. Proof that I’m either healing or quietly unraveling in ways that still pass for “fine” if you don’t look too closely. There’s something unsettling about knowing your inner world is being reviewed, studied, interpreted… like I’m both the patient and the pattern, the person and the data set. We made this agreement a long time ago because I’m not good at talking in sessions. Not the way she wants me to, anyway. My words don’t come out clean there. They get caught somewhere between my chest and my throat, like they’re waiting for permission that never fully arrives. So instead, I write. I bleed onto paper where no one is watching me do it. She leaves space… intentional, clinical silence… the kind that isn’t empty at all but heavy, loaded, waiting. And I know exactly what she’s doing. I can feel it in the way the room stretches, in the way time slows just enough to become noticeable. Silence is a tool. A calculated one. Four seconds is all it takes for most people to start squirming, to feel that subtle panic creep in, that need to fix the quiet before it swallows them whole. Four seconds before the brain starts whispering, say something, anything, just don’t let it stay like this. And then they do. They offer up pieces of themselves like a trade… truth in exchange for relief. Confessions just to make the discomfort stop.

I don’t break like that. Silence doesn’t pull something out of me… it pulls me further in. It doesn’t feel like an open door, it feels like a closed one I’m not supposed to knock on. My brain doesn’t interpret her quiet as an invitation; it translates it into absence. Into disinterest. Into a quiet, unspoken you’re already too much, don’t make it worse. So I shrink. I fold in on myself so subtly it probably doesn’t even register from the outside, but inside it feels like I’m disappearing in real time. I sit there, hands still, body calm, face neutral… performing composure while everything inside me goes dim and distant. Matching her silence with my own, like we’re locked in some kind of quiet standoff where whoever speaks first is the one who risks being exposed. And I won’t. I can’t. Because speaking feels like stepping into a spotlight I didn’t ask for, with no idea what version of me is about to be seen. I can feel her waiting. It fills the room, presses against my chest, stretches the seconds until they feel too big to hold. The clock ticks louder. My heartbeat feels louder. Every tiny shift, the scratch of a pen, the creak of a chair, feels amplified against the weight of everything not being said. And still… nothing comes out. Not because there’s nothing there, but because there’s too much, and none of it feels safe enough to release. So I stay quiet. I stay contained. I stay unreadable. And somewhere in that stillness, I start to wonder… what does it say about me that silence doesn’t invite me in, it convinces me I was never meant to speak at all?

She said it’s people pleasing. That somewhere along the way, I learned my voice wasn’t something I was allowed to just have… it was something I had to weigh, soften, edit down into something acceptable before I ever let it exist outside of me. That I don’t just speak… I scan first. Read the room like it’s a warning label. Measure tone, expression, timing, energy… looking for any sign that what I’m about to say might be too loud, too heavy, too inconvenient. That I’ve trained myself to ask for permission without ever opening my mouth. And if I don’t find it? I disappear. Quietly. Cleanly. Like I was never going to say anything in the first place. She said I’d rather erase myself than risk being too much, and I hate how quickly that settles into my bones like something I already knew but didn’t want named. Because it’s not just something I do in that room with her… it’s something I do everywhere. In conversations where I swallow thoughts mid-sentence because someone else’s voice got louder. In moments where I rehearse what I want to say so many times in my head that the moment passes before I ever say it. In friendships where I make myself smaller just to make sure I’m still allowed to exist in them. So imagine being someone like that… someone who has spent a lifetime editing themselves down into something easier to hold… and then having to sit across from someone whose entire job is to see you, and say, “I have nothing.” Nothing to give. Nothing to say. When the truth is, it’s not that there’s nothing there, it’s that I’ve spent so long convincing myself not to take up space that even my silence feels like the safest thing I have to offer.

I told her I have writer’s block. Which feels like a stupid name for it, honestly, because I’m not writing fiction… I’m not building worlds or inventing characters or trying to chase some elusive idea into existence. The material is right here. It’s me. My life, my thoughts, my feelings.. raw, real, already lived. There shouldn’t be a barrier between me and something that already belongs to me, and yet somehow there is. It’s like there’s a door in the center of my chest… heavy, sealed, vibrating with something alive behind it. I can feel it. Constantly. Like pressure building in a space with no release. Like a storm trapped in a room with no windows. And every time I reach for the handle, every time I try to open it and let something out, nothing comes. Just silence. Just blankness. Or worse… the door flies open all at once and everything spills out in a language I don’t understand… too loud, too fast, too tangled to separate into anything that resembles a sentence. It’s like trying to catch water in my hands and watching it slip through my fingers before I can even see what I’m holding. She told me to just write anyway. Of course she did. She always does this… gently, but relentlessly guiding me straight into the exact place I’m trying not to go. There’s no way around it with her, no safe detours. Just forward. Into it. And usually, I fight it. I resist. I sit there annoyed, frustrated, feeling exposed… but eventually, something cracks open and I find my way through. I always do. But this time feels different. This time it doesn’t feel like a wall I can push past… it feels like a maze with no exit, like I’ve been dropped somewhere unfamiliar inside myself and the map I used to have doesn’t work anymore. This time, I don’t even know where “through it” is… or if it exists at all.

I keep thinking about her face when she reads this, like I can already see it playing out in slow motion before it even happens. The slight tilt of her head to the left when I say something she doesn’t fully love. It’s not disapproval exactly, but something close enough that I feel it anyway. The way her eyebrows pull together just a fraction, like she’s standing at a crossroads inside her own mind, deciding whether to press me harder or let me sit in the discomfort a little longer. The almost-smile she gives when she thinks I’ve touched something real, something fragile… like if she reacts too strongly, it might disappear, like a deer in the woods that bolts the second it realizes it’s being watched. She has tells. Tiny ones. Controlled, professional, carefully contained… but they’re there. And I notice all of them. I catalog them without trying, like my brain is constantly taking notes, building a quiet file on what earns approval, what invites challenge, what makes her lean in and what makes her pull back. I track the pauses between her words, the way her pen moves or doesn’t, the subtle shift in her posture when something I say lands heavier than expected. It’s automatic. Instinctual. Like I’ve been trained to read people so closely that even in a room where I’m supposed to just exist, I’m still analyzing the emotional temperature, still adjusting myself in real time. And I wonder what that says about me, too. That I’m watching her that closely. That I’m studying her reactions like they hold the answer key to whether I’m doing this “right,” like there’s some invisible rubric for how to be a good patient, a good human, a manageable version of myself. That even here, especially here, in a space that was built for me to take up space, I’m still turning outward, still calibrating, still shaping myself around someone else’s responses instead of just letting myself be.

She gave me questions. A whole list of them. The kind that look harmless at first glance, neatly packaged, almost clinical, like something you’d skim and think, oh, I’ve got this, until you actually sit down with them and realize they aren’t asking for surface-level answers, they’re asking you to peel yourself open. The kind that don’t stay on the page, but follow you around, echoing in your head when you’re brushing your teeth, when you’re driving, when you’re trying to sleep. They sound like they came from some worksheet, something standardized and impersonal, but somehow, when you answer them honestly, they stop feeling generic and start feeling invasive… like they’ve found a way to bypass all your defenses and go straight for the softest parts of you. So I did. Or at least I tried to.

What is the specific, harsh story I am telling myself right now?
That everyone leaves. Not in a distant, philosophical, that’s just life kind of way… but in a deeply personal, lived-in, I-have-watched-this-happen-over-and-over-again kind of way. People leave because they choose to. People leave because they have to. People leave because something in them fractures under the weight of their own existence. People leave because something in me is too much, too heavy, too exhausting to carry forever. It’s not just a thought that passes through my mind, it feels like a law I’ve memorized. Like gravity. Like something that doesn’t require ongoing evidence because it’s already been proven enough times to feel inevitable. I don’t question it the way you question a fear, I accept it the way you accept the sky is blue, even on the days it isn’t.

What is one piece of evidence against that thought?
My best friend. Twenty-five years of her choosing me, over and over again. She’s still here. She has seen me in pieces, versions of me I barely recognize, versions of me I wouldn’t have stayed for and she didn’t run. She stayed through the ugly, through the silence, through the parts of me that don’t know how to be easy. But even as I write that, even as I try to let it count, there’s this quiet, insidious voice threading its way through the truth, asking, yea… but what if she knew everything? Not the version of me that’s been softened, explained, or processed into something digestible. The unfiltered thoughts. The sharp edges. The things I don’t say because I don’t even fully understand them myself. Would she still stay then? Or is part of her staying built on the version of me I’ve carefully curated, the one that doesn’t overwhelm, doesn’t spill, doesn’t demand too much space? And just like that, even my strongest evidence starts to feel conditional. Fragile. Like it could shatter if examined too closely.

Is this thought based on emotion or fact?
It feels like fact. That’s the most dangerous part of it. It doesn’t feel distorted or exaggerated… it feels backed by history. Death took people. Choice took people. Some people chose death. Silence took people, conversations that stopped, connections that slowly thinned out until they disappeared completely. And the ones who are still here… my brain has already found ways to explain that, too. My children are here because they’re my children. They don’t get to leave. Their presence doesn’t challenge the belief, it just exists alongside it, like an exception that proves nothing. So it doesn’t soften the narrative. It doesn’t weaken it. It just sits beside it, untouched. So yea… it feels like fact. Like something etched into me, not something I can simply think my way out of.

What would I tell a friend in my exact situation?
I’d tell her it’s not true. I’d tell her that her brain is trying to protect her, that it’s building a shield out of anticipation so she doesn’t have to feel the shock of loss when it comes. I’d tell her not everyone is searching for an exit. That some people stay, not out of obligation, not out of habit, but because they want to. I’d tell her she is worth staying for. That she is not too much, not too heavy, not something people endure until they can escape. And I would mean it. Every word. I wouldn’t hesitate. I wouldn’t second-guess it. Which is almost cruel, when you think about it… how easily I can offer that kind of grace to someone else, how confidently I can hold that truth for them, and how the second I try to turn it inward, it slips through me. Like it was never meant to belong to me in the first place.

How does this thought influence how I behave?
I live like a pre-abandonment version of myself. Like I’m always bracing for impact that hasn’t happened yet. I don’t wait for proof, I anticipate it. I study people in real time, listening not just to what they say, but how they say it. The pauses. The shifts in tone. The way their energy changes mid-conversation. I dissect wording like it’s coded, like there’s a hidden message underneath everything that I need to catch before it’s too late. I listen for what I call “escape language”, subtle distancing, small disclaimers, anything that sounds like the beginning of an ending. And the second I think I hear it, something in me tightens. Closes. Pulls back. I start building distance before they have the chance to. I start grieving people who are still right in front of me, still talking to me, still choosing me… because in my mind, the leaving has already begun.

Does how I behave influence the outcome?
Yea. It does. And I hate that answer, because it means I’m not just being hurt by the pattern, I’m helping create it. If I start pulling away, if I start treating people like they’re already halfway out the door, then of course something shifts. Of course it creates space where there wasn’t any before. Of course it changes the way they show up, the way they respond, the way they connect. So it becomes this loop that feeds itself… I expect people to leave, so I move like they already have, and then the relationship starts to thin, starts to strain, starts to lose something… and it feels like confirmation. Like proof that I was right all along. Even if I was the one who loosened the thread in the first place. Even if I helped unravel it.

How can I stop this cycle?
This is the part where I’m supposed to have something hopeful to say. Something clean. Something actionable. I know the language for it. I know exactly what she wants to hear. Challenge the thought. Stay present. Don’t assign meaning too quickly. Communicate instead of assuming. I can recite it like a script. I understand it logically, completely. But knowing it and doing it are not the same thing… not even close. Because in the moment, the exact moment where it actually matters, my body moves faster than my mind. The second I hear that shift, that hint of distance, it’s like something inside me locks into place. There it is. Proof. Confirmation. And once that switch flips, it doesn’t feel like a thought anymore, it feels like a conclusion. And you don’t argue with conclusions. You don’t pause and analyze them. You accept them. You brace for them. You prepare for what you already believe is inevitable. So I don’t know how to stop it. Not in the way that counts. Not in the moment where it would actually change something. Not yet.

Which I guess brings me back to where I actually am right now. I keep saying I don’t know how I feel, but that’s not entirely true… it’s not absence, it’s inaccessibility. It’s like the feelings exist in a language my brain can’t translate fast enough to keep up with. They’re there, unmistakably there, living in my body like something physical, something heavy and insistent. They sit in my chest like a locked scream, pressing outward against bone and breath, like something is trying to claw its way out but keeps hitting a wall it can’t break through. They don’t rise up neatly into thoughts I can name or sentences I can form… they just stay low, dense, uncooperative. My heart races out of nowhere, like it knows something I don’t. My ears click in that strange, hollow way that makes everything feel slightly disconnected, like I’m half a second behind my own life. There are these sharp, electric zaps in my brain… quick, disorienting flashes that feel like misfires, like something is short-circuiting under the weight of everything it’s trying to process at once. My hands shake just enough to betray me, just enough to whisper, you’re not as okay as you’re pretending to be. It’s like my body is having an entire conversation without me, processing something out loud while my mind stands outside the door, unable to get in. And when I try to force it… to grab onto one feeling, one thread, anything and turn it into words, it jams. Completely. Like a highway at a standstill, cars piled up for miles with no clear cause, just this overwhelming sense of too much and nowhere for it to go. Like every thought is trying to exit at the same time, crashing into each other, clogging the only way out until nothing moves at all. So they stay there. Layered. Stacked. Unprocessed. Pressing against me from the inside like a weight I can’t shift, like I’m being slowly buried under something no one else can see, suffocating in a silence that is anything but empty.

I used to think writer’s block meant there was nothing there, an empty page, an empty mind, a quiet that felt clean and explainable. Like a drought. Like something had simply dried up and needed time to come back. But this doesn’t feel empty. This feels crowded. Overfull. Like a room packed wall to wall with things I don’t know how to sort through without knocking something over that I won’t be able to put back where it belongs. Too much to name. Too much to hold still long enough to examine. Too much that feels dangerous to even touch, because I know myself well enough to know that if I pull one thread, it won’t come out neatly… it’ll unravel everything attached to it. And I don’t trust myself to survive that kind of unraveling right now. So maybe this isn’t writer’s block at all. Maybe it’s a feelings block. Maybe it’s every emotion I’ve avoided, postponed, softened, or buried finally pressing forward all at once, crowding the doorway, fighting to be let out… and nowhere in me knowing how to open it without being flooded. Maybe I’m not stuck because there’s nothing there, maybe I’m stuck because there’s too much, and I don’t know how to release it in a way that won’t consume me. And for now, this… this messy, tangled, half-formed unraveling that doesn’t quite make sense and doesn’t tie itself up neatly… this is the closest thing I have to honesty. Not polished, not resolved, not even fully understood… just real in the most uncomfortable, uncontained way. And maybe that has to be enough for now. Same time tomorrow?