The unedited version of a girl in the dark.

♡ ᴄᴏᴢʏ ɢᴀᴍᴇʀ.

♡ ʜᴏʀʀᴏʀ ᴇɴᴛʜᴜꜱɪᴀꜱᴛ.

♡ ᴘʜᴏᴛᴏɢʀᴀᴘʜᴇʀ.

♡ ᴅᴀʀᴋ ʀᴏᴍᴀɴᴄᴇ ɢɪʀʟɪᴇ.

♡ ꜱᴀᴅ ɢɪʀʟ ᴡʀɪᴛᴇʀ.

♡ ᴄᴀɴᴄᴇʀ ꜱᴜʀᴠɪᴠᴏʀ.

♡ ᴛʜᴇ ɢɪʀʟ ᴡʜᴏ'ꜱ ɴᴇᴠᴇʀ ᴇɴᴏᴜɢʜ.

The day I met him.

I remember it clearly, like a vivid snapshot in my mind that refuses to fade. There was an energy about him, a spark that caught me off guard.

I didn’t realize then how much he would change the course of my life. I gave him everything I had.. my heart, my hopes, my dreams.

I believed in the “forever” he promised, the future we would build. But forever was just a word to him, empty and elusive.

He never had the same effect on him as he did on me, and that’s okay. Maybe I’m the one who wasn’t worth the effort.

I should have known better.

Love stories in real life are rarely the fairy tales we imagine. No one ever really stays forever, no matter how much we hope or plead.

When he said “forever,” I thought he meant it with all his soul. But people change, feelings fade.

I’ve come to accept that.

It’s okay. Sometimes love isn’t equal, sometimes it’s very much one-sided, and it’s painful, but it’s the truth I have to face.

Now, I see him moving on, happier than I ever saw him with me. He found a way to leave me behind, and in doing so, found this bright, new happiness that I never could bring him.

It hurts.

Not just a little, but in every corner of my being. But if he’s happier now, maybe that’s enough.

Maybe it’s what he needed: to throw me aside to see what life could be like without me.

And if that’s true, then I’ll carry the pain quietly, because his happiness became more important than my own.

Maybe this is what it’s always been.

A story about me fading out of someone else’s life, just like others have faded out of mine.

Maybe no one ever really meant forever. Maybe I was just never meant to stay.

In this darkness, where hurt surrounds me like a suffocating fog, I find a strange kind of clarity.

If I disappear, if I’m no longer here, that’s one less person hurting because of me.

Maybe that’s the kind of peace we all want.. the kind where the world is a little less burdened without us.

This is it.

My final letter.

My final texts.

No more tears.

No more struggles that feel endless.

The darkness calls me now, and for the first time, I feel ready to listen.

Goodbye, my loves.

𝑬𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒅𝒂𝒚 𝒇𝒆𝒆𝒍𝒔 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒓𝒆𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝑰 𝒅𝒐𝒏’𝒕 𝒇𝒊𝒕, 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝑰’𝒎 𝒕𝒐𝒐 𝒎𝒖𝒄𝒉 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒆𝒏𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉 𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒂𝒎𝒆 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆.

𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒆𝒎𝒑𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒔𝒔 𝒊𝒔 𝒍𝒐𝒖𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒏 𝒂𝒏𝒚𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒆𝒍𝒔𝒆 𝒏𝒐𝒘. 𝑻𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒊𝒔 𝒎𝒆 𝒄𝒉𝒐𝒐𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒒𝒖𝒊𝒆𝒕.

I’ve spent years trying to be less of a burden, less of a glitch in the world’s code.

I tried to fix it.. tried to be better, quieter, kinder, smaller.. but the world kept reminding me I don’t belong here.

Every smile I forced, every “I’m fine” I choked out, every night I lay awake wondering why I couldn’t just… fit.

I’m so tired. I’m done carrying this weight that was never meant for me.

I’m sorry.

To the people who tried to love me anyway. To the ones who stayed longer than they should have.

To the version of me that once believed I could become something worth keeping.

I’m sorry for the space I took up, for the worry I caused, for every time my existence made the air feel thinner.

This is it.

I’m done carrying the guilt of being here. I’m done pretending tomorrow might feel different.

If the universe made an error when it let me stay this long, I’m correcting it now.

Quietly.

Finally.

Thank you for the moments that almost felt like light. I hope the world gets lighter without me in it.

The beeps from the machines felt louder than my own heartbeat. They told me I survived.

They kept me for observation, said I was “lucky.” Lucky. The word feels like a cruel joke. I survived something I never thought I’d come back from.

For a few terrifying hours, everything went dark, and part of me was ready for it to stay that way.

The pain had swallowed me whole.. the loneliness, the constant feeling that I was pouring everything I had into someone who only ever took.

And then I woke up.

I’m still here.

Part of me feels grateful, like I’ve been given another chance I didn’t think I deserved. The other part just feels... hollow. Empty in a way I can’t explain.

I thought about calling them first. Old habits die hard, I guess. In those darkest moments before everything went black, their face was what I held onto.

I convinced myself that if I made it through, they'd be there.. shocked, scared, ready to wrap me in the kind of love I always poured into them.

I gave them my whole heart, my vulnerabilities, my trust. And when I was at my absolute lowest, when I needed even a fraction of that back.. they were nowhere.

Silent.

Distant.

Like my pain was an inconvenience they didn’t want to deal with. When the fog cleared and I checked my phone, there was nothing.

No missed calls.

No frantic texts.

Just silence from the one person I thought would care the most.

Then someone mentioned how they reached out to some stranger online who was struggling.

They’d spent hours talking them through their pain, offering support, checking in like their life mattered.

Which had me thinking about all those posts they comment on. Strangers. Complete fucking strangers pouring their guts out about wanting to disappear, about how heavy everything felt.

They’d type out the perfect responses... “You’re not alone,” “I’m here if you need to talk,” “Please reach out, mental health is real,” with all the kisses and heart emojis.

They looked like the caring one. The safe one. The person who shows up. But when it was me.. their person, the one who actually loved them.. they couldn’t even look at it.

When I told them how dark it was getting, they got quiet. When I said I didn’t know how much longer I could do this, they told me I was “too much” or that I needed to “figure out my own stuff.”

They never once asked what it felt like to be me. They never fought for me the way I fought for them every single day.

And now?

After everything?

Still nothing.

I saw the screenshots someone had forwarded me. The empathy, the concern, the genuine investment.

For them.

For people you’ve never even met.

That’s when it hit me like a freight train. They never actually gave a shit about me. Not really. Not in the way that counts.

I was the one always listening to their problems, dropping everything when they needed someone, believing every “I’m here for you” and “you mean everything to me.” But it was all surface.

Fakeness wrapped in pretty words. One-sided as hell, and I was too blinded by what I felt for them to see it.

They had energy for strangers in crisis, but not for the person who would’ve walked through fire for them.

The realization burns worse than anything I went through. I loved a version of them that never existed. Or maybe it did, but only when it was convenient or public-facing.

I’m still here.

Breathing.

Alive.

I want it to stop hurting.

I want to close my eyes and not wake up to another day of this.

I’m exhausted from pretending I’m okay when everything inside me is screaming to disappear.

The panic attacks, the nights I can’t sleep, the way my mind loops back to every hurt, every betrayal, every time I wasn’t enough.

Im tired of crying until my eyes burn and my chest aches.

How did we get here?

How did the person I loved more than anything become the one who destroyed me?

He promised.

He promised so many times.

He looked me in the eyes and said he would never hurt me. That I was safe with him. That our love was different, real, the kind that lasts.

He said I was his soulmate, his forever.

We talked about building a life together.. little things like lazy Sunday mornings and big things like growing old side by side.

I believed every word.

I let myself fall completely because he made me feel like I finally had someone who saw me, who chose me every single day.

And then… he dropped me.

Just like that.

No warning that actually mattered, no real fight, no explanation that made any sense. One moment we were everything, and the next I was nothing.

He promised forever and then vanished from my life so quickly it made my head spin. It’s like I was a chapter he could just close and forget about.

I keep replaying everything in my mind, trying to find the moment it all turned into a lie.

Was any of it real?

The way he held me, the late-night talks, the way he said my name like it was something precious.. did none of that mean anything?

I was so sure he was my person.

My soulmate.

The one who finally made the world feel less heavy. But now I see it clearly: I didn’t mean anything to him.

I was temporary.

Convenient.

Maybe even a distraction.

The love I felt so deeply was apparently one-sided, and that realization cuts deeper than anything.

I feel so stupid.

So pathetic for believing him.

For giving him every piece of me when he was just… playing along. How could someone say all those beautiful things and then walk away without looking back?

It makes me question everything we ever shared. Every “I love you,” every plan, every tender moment.. were they all just words?

Empty promises from someone who never actually cared?

Now that he’s gone, I’ve slipped right back into the darkness I thought I’d escaped.

I can’t eat. Food tastes like nothing, and the thought of it makes my stomach turn.

I’ve started self-harming again, like the old habits were just waiting for me to crack. The sting feels familiar, almost comforting in the worst way, because at least it’s something I can control when everything else is spinning.

All I want to do is sleep. Sleep for days, weeks, forever. Maybe if I stay in bed long enough, the pain will dull or I’ll just stop existing altogether.

I don’t trust anyone anymore.

Not really.

How can I?

If the person I trusted most could shatter me so completely, what’s left?

Everyone feels like a potential liar now. I keep everyone at arm’s length, afraid to let them see how broken I am.

I smile when I have to, but inside I’m screaming. I don’t want to be around people.

I don’t want to explain.

I just want to disappear.

He didn’t just break my heart.

He crushed my entire being.

Every hope I had, every fragile piece of confidence I’d managed to rebuild, every reason I had to keep going.. he destroyed it all.

I feel hollow.

Empty.

Like there’s nothing left of me worth saving. Some days I don’t even want to be alive. The thought circles in my head more than I want to admit.

What’s the point if this is what love leads to?

If I can give my whole self to someone and still end up feeling worthless?

I miss the version of me that believed in us. I miss feeling wanted. I miss the future I thought we were building. And I hate myself for missing any of it when it was clearly all fake to him.

I don’t know how to climb out of this. I don’t know if I even want to right now.

The pain is so loud, and the silence in my life is even louder. I just needed to get it all out tonight. Maybe writing it down will help me breathe for a few minutes.

It’s too heavy, too constant, like it’s crushing the air out of my lungs.

I’m so tired of fighting, so tired of being broken over and over again.

It’s my time to go.

I think I’m ready to leave this behind.

Maybe somewhere else there won’t be this much pain.

The laughs.

The promises.

The way you looked at me.

Turns out it was all a lie.

I don’t know you at all.

And the worst part?

I still have to live with the pieces you left behind.

Done with life, done with people, done with this endless fucking cycle that keeps dragging me under.

I don’t even know how I’m still sitting here typing this when everything inside me just wants to disappear.

Years of my life I gave, pieces of myself I’ll never get back, and for what? To find out none of it was real. He never loved me the way I deserved. Maybe he never loved me at all.

Now I can’t trust anyone. Not a single soul. Every message, every “I’m here for you,” every promise feels like another trap waiting to snap shut.

I’m closed off, guarded, exhausted from even trying to let people in. The phone rings and my chest tightens until I can’t breathe. I’d rather sit in silence than risk another knife in my back.

I don’t even want to be here anymore.

The thought keeps circling like smoke.. heavy, choking, constant. The pain in my body, the weight in my chest, the way my mind won’t shut up… it’s too much.

I’m tired of fighting just to exist. Tired of pretending I’m okay. I’m barely holding on. Tired of waking up and doing it all over again when nothing feels worth it.

I’m so fucking tired of surviving.I keep thinking about just vanishing. Starting over somewhere no one knows my name, my diagnosis, my sob story.

No more posts begging for help, no more forced smiles on camera, no more “sad girl writer” trying to turn pain into something beautiful.

Just silence.

Peace.

Just slide under. Let the water close over my head. Hold my breath until it stops hurting.

Gone.

Quiet.

No more fighting.

Everything is too much.

The pain in my body that never fucking leaves, the exhaustion that lives in my bones, the constant noise in my head screaming that I’m failing.

Three babies who need me, fur babies who curl into me like I’m their whole world, bills I can’t pay, a future that feels like it’s dissolving in this same hot water.

I’m so tired of pretending I’m strong enough to carry it all.

The one person I thought was forever. The one I let all the way in, who I believed would stay through the cancer, the breakdowns, the ugly parts.

He’s gone. Not even pretending to care anymore. Just… absent. Like I was never the love of his life, like none of it mattered.

That betrayal sits heavier than the water right now. I loved so loud for someone who never loved me back the same. And now I’m here alone with the echo.

I can’t do it anymore.

I don’t want to.

The thought of waking up tomorrow and doing another round of this.. smiling for the kids, posting something hopeful online, pretending I’m not drowning.. makes me want to disappear tonight instead.

Just let go.

It would be peaceful. It would be over.

Completely fucking done.

They’ve upped my depression meds three times and none of it touches this. The cloud is thicker than ever, heavy and suffocating, pressing down until I can barely breathe.

I drag myself through the hours like a ghost in my own life. Numb, hollow, pointless.

Every attempt to push through just sinks me deeper. I don’t even want to fight it anymore.

I just want to disappear.

Not in some poetic way. Really disappear. Fade into nothing so this endless ache finally stops.

The cancer’s gone but the rot it left behind is still eating me alive. The betrayal, the nights I can’t sleep, the flashbacks that make me want to claw my own skin off again.

I stopped eating. I barely move. I sit here staring at walls while the hours bleed away, wondering why I even bother waking up.

I’m so tired of pretending there’s light at the end of this. There isn’t. There’s just more gray, more pain, more days where I feel like a burden that should’ve been erased a long time ago.

Sometimes the urge to vanish is so strong it’s almost comforting. Pack nothing. Leave everything. Walk until the world forgets I existed.

No more meds that don’t work. No more nights replaying how he lied and left. No more waking up disappointed that I’m still here.

It’s been years, and I still can’t walk into my old apartment building without my stomach dropping. I left that place as soon as I could, but the memories don’t care about new addresses.

That night started so normally. I’d had a long week at work and just wanted to unwind.

A couple of friends were supposed to come over for drinks, nothing crazy, just catching up. I remember having a Smirnoff Ice while I waited.

The bottle was already open on the counter; one of them must have started it when they arrived early. I didn’t think twice. I trusted them.

The first sip tasted a little off, slightly bitter, but I chalked it up to a cheap bottle. By the second glass, the room was tilting. My limbs felt heavy, like they belonged to someone else. I tried to stand up to get water, but my legs buckled. I remember laughing nervously, saying something like “Wow, I must be more tired than I thought.” Then the lights went fuzzy. Voices.. familiar voices. Sounded distant, laughing, overlapping.

Hands on my shoulders guiding me toward the couch. I tried to speak, but my tongue was thick and useless.

Everything after that is a black hole.

I woke up on the floor sometime before dawn. The apartment was dead quiet except for the hum of the fridge and my own ragged breathing.

At first I thought I’d just passed out from drinking too much. My head was pounding, my mouth dry as sandpaper. But when I tried to move, a sharp, tearing pain shot through my lower body.. like someone had taken sandpaper to my insides. I gasped and curled into myself, hands instinctively pressing between my legs. They came away sticky, slick with something that wasn’t just sweat.

I lay there for what felt like hours, staring at the ceiling, trying to piece together what had happened.

My clothes were half-on, twisted and torn in places. There were bruises blooming on my thighs, fingerprints pressed into my hips like dark signatures.

My neck hurt. My wrists felt raw. The worst part was the deep, throbbing ache inside me, a violation that went beyond skin. My body knew even when my mind was still catching up.

It felt used.

Broken.

Like something sacred had been ripped out and discarded on the carpet beside me.

I crawled to the bathroom on my hands and knees because standing made the pain worse.

In the mirror I barely recognized myself.. mascara streaked down my cheeks, lips swollen, hair matted.

I sat in the shower until the water ran cold, scrubbing until my skin was raw, but I couldn’t wash away the feeling.

The shame came in waves.

Why didn’t I fight harder?

Why did I let them in?

Why didn’t I notice the taste in the Vodka?

Stupid, stupid questions that still haunt me.

I never reported it.

I doubted my own memory for years. The blackouts, the missing time.. it was easier to believe I’d just embarrassed myself than to accept that people I considered close could do something so monstrous.

Someone brought up bad dating stories, and I made a vague comment about a “really rough night years ago.”

My blood turned to ice.

I excused myself to the bathroom and threw up until there was nothing left. Then I cried so hard I thought I’d crack a rib.

Coming home that night, the old trauma felt brand new. I lay in bed feeling phantom hands on me again.

The soreness between my legs, the bruises I couldn’t explain, the way I couldn’t sit comfortably for days afterward.

The constant fear that someone would find out and judge me.

I’ve built a life far away from those people. I have boundaries now that are ironclad. I listen to my gut. I protect myself in ways I never did before.

The trauma lives in my body, but it doesn’t own me anymore. Not completely. Nights like tonight it roars back, loud and vicious, demanding to be witnessed. So here it is. The full, ugly truth I was never supposed to know.

I woke up violated in my own apartment.

I carried that pain alone for years.

Someone I care about raised their voice at me earlier, not even that loud in the grand scheme of things..

And in an instant I wasn’t here anymore. I was back there. Back in that nightmare that lasted four and a half years.

It’s like my brain has a hair-trigger alarm wired straight to those memories. One sharp tone, one angry edge in a voice, and suddenly I’m small again.

I can feel the way my shoulders automatically hunch, the way my breath catches, the way my mind starts cataloging escape routes even though I’m safe now.

Or at least I’m supposed to be safe.

I thought I had buried it deeper than this. I really did. But trauma doesn’t stay buried; it waits. It waits for the smallest crack in the armor and then it floods everything.

I remember the fear that lived in that house like a second resident. The constant walking on eggshells, trying to predict what would set him off. The way love and terror got braided together so tightly I couldn’t tell which was which anymore.

He raped me so many times that my body stopped feeling like mine. I would dissociate, floating somewhere above the scene, watching it happen to someone who looked like me but couldn’t possibly be me because how could anyone survive that?

And then there was the night he pushed me down the stairs.

I was pregnant. Not very far along, around 20 weeks. I had felt that tiny spark of life inside me and for the first time in years I had something to hold onto that was pure. Something that hadn’t been poisoned by him yet.

I don’t even remember what the argument was about anymore. Something stupid. Something that didn’t matter. But he was screaming and I tried to get away and his hands were on me and then I was falling.

The pain was unreal.

The sound my body made hitting each step is still in my ears sometimes when it’s too quiet. And then the bleeding. The terrible, cramping knowledge that the baby was gone. That he had taken that from me too.

I lay there at the bottom of the stairs thinking this was finally it.. he was going to kill me and maybe that would be a mercy. But he didn’t. He just stood at the top looking down at me like I was something disgusting he’d stepped in.

I was rushed to the hospital.. my sweet, innocent baby boy had Hydrocephalus, and they wanted me to give birth as soon as possible. So I did.

Here i am, at Mount Sinai Hospital. I laid in that bed for 3 days waiting.. waiting for him to be born.

March 4th, 2009. My baby boy, Gavyn Rayne Heaton was born. Weighting 2lbs, 8oz. He was a stillborn. I didnt get to hear his innocent cry. Didn't get to feel his soft skin. My hello, was also my goodbye.

I don’t know how I survived the rest of that relationship. I don’t know how I found the strength to leave. But one day I did. I got out. I ran with nothing but the clothes on my back and the shattered pieces of who I used to be.

The first weeks after were surreal. I was free, but I didn’t feel free. I was confused all the time. My nervous system was stuck in fight-or-flight.

I would cry at the drop of a hat.. grocery stores, red lights, the sound of a door closing too hard. I was terrified of everyone and everything. I still am, sometimes.

The hypervigilance never fully went away. I scan rooms. I read tones. I brace for impact even when there is no impact coming.

Tonight proved that.

Someone I care about. Smeone who has never hurt me like that.. yelled in frustration, and my body reacted like I was about to die.

Ye, it was through a text. But it still hurt. I wanted to shrink into the floor. I wanted to apologize for existing. I wanted to run.

Instead I just stood there frozen while the memories played on loop: the stairs, the blood, the hands that were supposed to protect me but only ever destroyed.

I’m not okay.

I’m not okay and I hate admitting that because I’ve worked so hard. I’ve been in therapy. I’ve journaled. I’ve tried to build a new life. But some wounds are so deep they echo forever.

The loss of the baby still aches in a place I can’t reach. The rapes left scars on my soul that no one can see. The almost-murder lives in my startle response and my nightmares.

I cry as I write this because I’m exhausted from carrying it. I cry because I miss the version of me that existed before him.

The one who laughed easily and trusted people and didn’t flinch at loud voices. I cry because I’m angry that he still gets to live rent-free in my head after all this time.

I cry because someone I care about is probably confused or hurt by my reaction and I don’t know how to explain that it’s not about them.

It’s about the ghost of a man who almost ended me.

But I’m still here.

I got out.

I survived the stairs.

I survived the loss.

I survived being choked, till almost passing out.

I survived the fear and the shame and the nights I wanted to disappear.

That has to count for something.

Maybe tonight I’ll let myself feel it all without trying to fix it. Maybe I’ll just sit with the grief and the rage and the fear until they get tired of screaming at me.

Tomorrow I’ll try again. I’ll remind myself that not every raised voice is a death sentence.

I’ll breathe through the flashbacks.

I’ll reach out for support instead of isolating. I’ll keep choosing life even when it hurts like hell.

I’ve accepted that now. Most people want something easy, something polished and predictable. But I’m none of those things. I’m different in all the ways that scare people away… and I’m tired of pretending otherwise.

I’m addicted to tattoos. The needle, the sting, the way ink sinks into my skin and makes me feel a little more permanent when everything else feels like it’s falling apart.

Every new piece is another chapter I’m claiming, another story I refuse to let fade.

My body’s becoming a canvas I can’t stop adding to, even when the money’s tight and the healing hurts. It’s messy, impulsive, and mine.

I’m mentally unstable.

Some days I’m up, laughing with my little crew, cuddling my fur babies like the world is soft and kind. Other days the darkness hits so hard I can barely breathe.

The anxiety, the panic that comes out of nowhere, the way my mind spirals until I feel like I’m drowning in my own thoughts.

I’m working on it, fighting like hell, but it’s still here. I’m still here.

And my memory?

God, it’s the worst. I forget plans, names, entire conversations. I’ll walk into a room and stand there blinking, trying to remember why I’m even there. It makes me feel unreliable, scattered, like I’m always letting people down without meaning to.

But despite all of it… if you’re the one I want, I’ll prove it every single day. I’ll fight through the fog in my head, through the mood swings and the blank spaces in my memory.

I’ll show up even when my body aches and my mind is screaming at me to hide. I’ll choose you over and over again, even on the days I barely know how to choose myself.

You’d be all I need.

All I want.

I’d pour every chaotic, tattooed, unstable piece of me into loving you right. I’d remember the important things.. the way you look at me, the way you make the noise in my head quiet down, the way being with you feels like the first real breath I’ve taken in years.

I know I’m a lot. I know I’m not easy. But for the right person… I’d be everything. I’d prove it a thousand times, in a thousand imperfect ways.

Just don’t give up on the girl who’s still learning how to stay.