An Unsent Letter

I’m writing this because I finally have words I didn’t have then, and because not having them almost broke me.

I don’t think either of us was cruel. I think we were overwhelmed in ways we didn’t know how to slow down.

My panic attacks weren’t random. My shutdowns weren’t me pulling away. Losing my ability to mask wasn’t me giving up—it was my brain and body saying they couldn’t keep doing that level of pretending anymore.

I was scared all the time. Scared of messing up conversations. Scared of saying the wrong thing and watching everything tilt. I could feel myself slipping and didn’t know how to stop it. Every argument felt like too much input at once—noise, emotion, pressure, history—until my system just flooded.

From the outside I know I probably looked cold or inconsistent or distant. Inside I was desperate to be understood and didn’t know how to explain what was happening fast enough.

I loved you. That’s not complicated for me. That part never was.

What was complicated was how much of myself I was losing trying to hold us together.

I kept choosing you because connection felt like oxygen. I didn’t realize I was starving myself in the process.

I see now that we stopped being able to talk without hurting each other. Everything triggered everything. We were both exhausted. Two nervous systems already stretched thin kept colliding instead of calming.

I don’t say that to rewrite the past or make myself the hero. I say it because this is the clearest version of the truth I have.

I wish I had known sooner what was happening to me. I wish I’d had language for masking and burnout and trauma instead of just shame. I wish I’d known how to ask for help instead of trying to outlast it.

I did love you. I still hold that gently, even now.

But loving you while losing myself wasn’t sustainable.

So I’m putting this here instead of sending it to you.

I’m not trying to reopen anything. I’m trying to stop carrying it alone.

I’m choosing myself now. Not because you were wrong. Because I was disappearing.

I hope you found peace.

I’m learning how to build mine.

– Hexx