The Canyon into which I Drop my Feelings

even if you already knew how toxic they were and how it made you respond.

i mean this in a lot of ways. when you don't have your family to dread going back to every evening anymore, when you dont have to answer the phone or spend your time with that "brutally honest" friend anymore, when you're not beholden to going back to that church weekly anymore, or a school, a job, anything.

when you don't feel the need to respond with the same tone as them, to keep your walls up, to be careful about how much you say so it can't be used against you or belittled there's so much about you that changes.

you'll find you have so much more energy to do the things you want to do. you can pursue projects you care about, be they silly, serious, big, or small. and people will care! people will look at your work and think it's wonderful, they'll want you to tell them more, they'll want to help you, they'll ask you how it's going and tell you that they love it.

you smile more. you can be more open and genuine even with people you don't know that well, because you weren't that introverted, you were beaten down into thinking you wouldn't get that attention because you didn't deserve it, that what you had to express wasn't important enough to be said.

more than that, you find you can receive criticism, not only because you're not on the defense but because once you're away from them you realize it was never that you couldn't, but that they were cruel.

you find you're open to more, not because you were too staunch or too boring but because the people around you now respect your boundaries.

you find you can set those boundaries, not because you were too weak but because you aren't being scared away from doing it. you're not around people who don't think of you as human or worthy of respect anymore.

you find a lot of things that you did in the past that may have been cold or harsh, or seen as flaws by those people were really just a defense. a defense that faded when it wasn't necessary anymore.

and you may have your moments where you rebound, where youre scared and closed off and the trauma responses kick in, but those are just moments. difference is, now you're free to grow, you can look around and see that you're safe and you can get through it all with the support of people who care.

it's not immediate and you don't realize it at first. it's a gradual change that one day leaves you sitting somewhere quiet, looking back and wondering why you feel so different now, hitting yourself over the head wondering why you ever put up with them as you finally cut ties with the leftover "not as bad as the rest" one because now you're so okay that you've forgotten how it feels to think that that's the best there is.