I Used the Big Word With Myself First

Dear Delyara, Before I said it to anyone else, I said it in my own head without flinching. That matters. Because I have spent years using smaller words for larger pain, even privately. Busy. Off. Emotional. Hormonal. Tired. Sensitive. Stressed. Burned out. All the softer terms that let me keep moving while staying just far enough from the full truth. This week I stopped doing that with myself. I used the bigger word. The one that changed the emotional lighting in the room of my own mind. And once I did, I realized how much of my suffering had been prolonged by how politely I described it, even to myself. Sometimes naming is not indulgence. Sometimes it is the beginning of rescue. That is what this felt like.