WTF Happened?!?

There was a very special and sweet harmony. Instead of being allowed to develop, it was quickly and unilaterally handed over to management. 

At the onset and for a long time, I couldn’t quite name what felt wrong. It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t explosive. It was quieter than that, more insidious. It felt as if I had wandered into a room where the conversation was thinner than advertised. The words were there, the people were there, the rituals of connection were intact, but something essential was missing. In its place, repression disguised as politeness, control disguised as good manners and etiquette.  

That sweetness is what makes it dangerous. It suggests care without responsibility, closeness without clarity. It is the emotional equivalent of overripe fruit, fragrant and already tipping toward rot.

That thinness wasn’t always obvious in the moment. It revealed itself afterward, in my body. In the subtle depletion I carried away from conversations. In the way I found myself bracing, editing, swallowing words before they were fully formed. My nervous system understood it before my mind was willing to admit it.  Love should not require the steady erosion of one’s spirit.  Endurance is not the same as health. I am allowed to choose peace without earning it through suffering first. I am allowed to want quiet, a little land, and a life that feels intentional rather than endured.

The tightly held feminist liberal identity remained curiously aligned with opposing patterns. What appeared as independence and moral resolve rarely ripened into partnership, shared responsibility, or candor. Instead, those gestures seemed to echo older structures—subtle forms of control, hierarchy, and self-interest, gently veiled as virtue. The tension in that contradiction revealed itself not loudly, but steadily, in each choice, each withholding, and in the repeated, unguarded exposure to the unresolved fractures within the family, particularly among the men.

The insistence on the close and constant proximity of the family was not incidental. It was central. Their patterns were folded into my daily life. My peace was treated as negotiable. My nervous system bore the consequences. What was presented as “family closeness” functioned as enforced exposure to dysfunction. I endured it quietly, politely, indefinitely. I survived it with grace, with care, with patience. That grace, that care, that patience were exploited. That endurance was a burden I did not choose. That exposure was unnecessary. That compromise was extracted from me.

I went from energized, curious, calm and open to depleted, defensive, reactive and shut down. That’s never happened to me before. But I never felt so compelled to stay someplace that was so corrosive before, either.

There was never any intention of building a full life together. That truth is now undeniable. I was not being invited into a partnership; I was being positioned for assimilation. I was expected to become one more dysfunctional family member, managed, contained, normalized, and silent. My autonomy, my depth, my values, and my peace were irrelevant. One brother felt it necessary to call me personally to drive home that point. Only compliance was required. Only silence was acceptable. Only endurance was tolerated. Only my presence, flattened, was allowed.

The parents, particularly the father, have had a hand in the ending of every one of the siblings’ relationships. They hold their children hostage—emotionally and financially—and every partner is eventually framed as exploitative. The story is always the same. The outcome is always the same.

For years, my words were managed. Not overtly silenced, but contained. Tolerated only when they remained comfortable, palatable, non-disruptive. Depth was allowed only if it did not demand response. Emotion was acceptable only if it did not require accountability. Complexity was reframed as “too much.” I learned to compress my voice. I learned to edit myself. I learned to shrink to survive, even as I continued to show up with grace and care. Even as I remained myself, my words were regulated. Even as I loved fully, my voice was constrained. Even as I cared without fail, I was contained.

And yet, I continued to show up. One crises after another. One dramatic incident after another.  I extended care. I did not withhold grace. I showed up for the mother, for the father, for the sister, even for the brother. Not because they earned it. Not because they appreciated it. Not because it was convenient. Because it is who I am. Because my nature is to give, even when it is not returned. My grace existed in the same space where my patience was tested, my boundaries ignored, my energy drained. My care persisted in the face of indifference, my kindness in the face of exploitation, my presence in the face of refusal. That grace was met with none of the reciprocity it deserved.  That grace was exploited. That grace existed alongside my diminishing health, my ignored boundaries, my drained energy. 

When I entered this dynamic, my health was solid. Low blood pressure. Low cholesterol. No medications. I was strong and active. Under sustained stress, that health eroded. Slowly. Predictably. I was diagnosed not with one issue, but four serious medical conditions.

I stated often—clearly—that the environment was harming me. The response was dismissal. My declining health was treated as a personal failure rather than an environmental consequence.

I will never forget sitting on the edge of the bed, crying, while the response was nothing—no presence, no curiosity. That moment clarified what years of patience could not, revealed what words alone could not, confirmed the limits imposed, exposed the emptiness, showed me exactly what was not to be offered.

At one point, I noticed myself beginning to change—becoming more guarded, less generous, more reactive. That frightened me. That showed me the cost of staying. That revealed the erosion I could no longer ignore. I recognized it as a warning, not a failure. 

Since leaving that environment my health has rebounded remarkably. I have been dismissed from seeing my vascular specialist all together and my hematologist only wants to see me yearly.

My b/p and cholesterol Rx’s doses have been halved. 

Since leaving, I now have full permission to speak. What is dismissed as “word salad” is not incoherence. It is the release of a voice that was regulated for others comfort. My many words are uncomfortable because they refuse compression, name patterns, accumulate evidence, and remove plausible deniability. That is not excess. That is restoration, liberation, reclamation. That is truth spoken without restraint. That is a voice restored.

When later accused of abuse and theft, it confirmed what I already understood. Those accusations were not insight. They were externalized guilt. They were shame and fear of accountability. Psychological language became camouflage. Labels replaced responsibility. Pure projection. I don’t confuse it for truth. 

Incompatibility is not abuse. Disappointment is not trauma. Some people leave relationships embarrassed, not traumatized. Diagnosing an ex is avoidance wearing a lab coat. That is exactly what those accusations were. Not truth. Not reflection. Not understanding. Avoidance. Fear. Deflection.

Friends and family witnessed what I lived. They saw me shrink, edit, brace, and disappear in ways that were never natural to me. They also saw how long I remained kind, respectful, and generous in circumstances that did not warrant it. They validated my pain, my restraint, my grace and my love. 

I will not forgive this—not because I am bitter, but because forgiveness would require a shared reality, and there has never been one. I will not rewrite the ledger. I will not absolve what was endured simply to appear evolved. My grace does not obligate me to erase myself.

Accusations are not accountability. Refusal to engage is not neutrality. The harm was real. The cost was real.

I still love. I cannot turn it off. That love does not require me to stay in a situation that damages my life, my body, my spirit. It does not obligate me to endure harm or erase myself. Love does not require proximity. Caring does not require self-abandonment. Compassion does not require endurance.

What makes this loss real is not that I believed in fantasy. It’s that I was operating at full power with assumptions of agreement.

I believed I was building a life between two adults who could stand on their own feet and choose each other freely. A life where intelligence was welcomed, not managed. Where depth was met with depth. Where curiosity, humor, sexuality, creativity, and responsibility could coexist without fear. A life that expanded outward—work, land, friendship, contribution—not one that collapsed inward into appeasement and obligation.

I believed in a full-power partnership. Two people with agency, capable of tolerating complexity, able to hold disagreement without control, who could face their families without sacrificing their future, willing to rupture inherited dysfunction rather than protect it at all costs.

There was so much room. So much that could have grown. So much that required courage. Life is supposed to happen for us, not to us. 

Instead, the future was quietly downsized.

My heart still wants to reject this reality. Keeps imagining what it could have been if I’d been joined in the deep end. If the gumption existed to break away. To rupture the dysfunctional instead of rupturing the potential. Instead of wallowing in the shallow end. 

I feel widowed. 

When I look at that chapter now, I can finally see it for what it was: a long, rigorous education. Fifteen years of immersion. Not a mistake, not a detour, not a failure — an experiment. One that taught me, with precision, what alignment feels like and what it costs when it’s absent.

I entered it open-hearted, capable, and sincere. I stayed because I believed in growth, in patience, in the possibility that clarity would eventually meet effort. And in an unexpected way, it did — just not in the form I once imagined.

What I gained is not small.

I gained an intimate understanding of my nervous system — how it signals truth long before language catches up. I learned how my body responds to environments that ask for self-erasure, and how quickly it heals when integrity is restored. I learned the difference between love that expands and love that requires endurance.

I gained discernment. I can now see the difference between closeness and enmeshment, between loyalty and self-abandonment, between compassion and complicity. I no longer confuse patience with virtue or silence with peace. I understand, viscerally, that harmony enforced is not harmony at all.

I gained my voice — not louder, but clearer. I no longer need to over-explain, prove, or defend my reality. I can name patterns without animosity, tell the truth without urgency, walk away without rewriting myself into someone smaller.

I gained boundaries that are not walls, but architecture. They don’t punish; they protect. They allow intimacy to exist without collapse, love without loss of self, generosity without depletion.

Most importantly, I gained myself back — not the earlier version, but a deeper one. One who knows her limits, honors her body, trusts her perception and no longer negotiates her peace.

I can be grateful without romanticizing the harm. I can honor what I learned without staying loyal to what hurt me. Gratitude does not require reunion. Growth does not require reconciliation. Clarity does not require permission.

This chapter gave me discernment, steadiness, and self-respect. It sharpened my intuition, clarified my values, taught me exactly what kind of life, partnership, and environment I will never again trade myself for.

Yet, I still believe in possibility. I’m happy with who I am and I can only credit all that has happened to me and everyone who has graced my life. So, thank you, I guess.