I Helped It Happen

Dear Delyara, Not that other people were innocent. Not that systems were kind. Not that work or relationships or family dynamics were entirely my fault. But that I participated in the continuation of things by being too understanding, too patient, too calm, too willing to make myself manageable in rooms that benefited from exactly that version of me. I helped it happen. Not all of it. Enough of it. That is a hard sentence to live beside. Because it means my pain is mixed with self-betrayal in ways I did not fully understand at the time. And once you see that clearly, it is impossible to go back to the cleaner stories.