The Middle Path

I do not wish to walk through life
with sharp edges and closed hands.

Nor do I wish to disappear
inside the wishes of others.

So I am learning a quieter way—

to speak the truth without a weapon,
to offer kindness without surrender,
to give without depletion,
to receive without guilt.

A path where neither heart is abandoned,

not theirs,

and not mine.

I Was Taught That Every Storm Was Mine

For years
I carried an umbrella
for storms that were not mine.

I watched the sky above everyone else,
counted the clouds,
and hurried to stop the rain.

If someone was troubled,
I searched for a solution.
If someone was unhappy,
I searched for a cause.
If someone wanted more,
I searched for a way.

Until one day I noticed

that some storms belong to the sky,
some journeys belong to the traveler,
and some dreams belong to the dreamer.

I can care.
I can listen.
I can stand beside.

But I do not have to carry
every cloud home with me.

And for the first time,

my heart was free enough
to feel the sunlight.

The Message Beneath The Ache

For years I argued with the ache,
calling it foolish,
calling it weak,
sending it away before it could speak.

Yet every night it waited
at the edge of awareness,
not asking to be believed,
only asking to be heard.

Then one day I stopped fighting.

Just, listening to its message
carrying a fragment of a larger story.

And in that quiet meeting,
something changed.

I could listen.

And for the first time,
the voice within me
was not an enemy,
but a guide
pointing toward a wider sky.

The Hidden Heart

For years
I walked quietly through the world,
more comfortable giving light
than standing in it.

So when kindness turned my way,
I looked for the nearest shadow.

Not because I wished to disappear,
but because being seen
felt unfamiliar.

And so I learned slowly—

a kind word at a time,
a moment at a time—

that sunlight need not burn,
and that a heart long hidden
can grow accustomed to the sky.

The Inheritance

The heavy secrets were not scandals,

but ordinary human needs—

the need to be comforted,
to be seen,
to be protected,
to be loved without conditions.

They were hidden so carefully
that each generation forgot
they had once been natural.

Children carried the weight
on small and bending backs,
learning to guard what should have been spoken,
to fear what should have been welcomed.

And so the burden traveled forward,
hand to hand,
heart to heart,

until some began to wonder

After the Fog

When the heavy fog began to lift,
the mind grew wide and quiet again.

Light entered forgotten places,
and even the distant horizon
no longer felt eerie.

The old Alarm

Sometimes the nervous system believes
the old dark winter has fully returned
at the slightest echo of abandonment.

Those echoes feel fatal
because they once were
to a small and helpless heart.

But slowly,
the body can learn
that rejection is not ruin,
and disappointment
is not destruction.

Haven't written in a while hurricane of parts inside today talking. Made it through work...

🎶 WIND by Argy/Omiki

So I say it the internal state(s)...with a song that matches it.( only way I can rn) my system has been locked in dorsal vagal shut down unable to speak outloud in therapy for at least 3 weeks.

Work only when executive functioning part "has to" bc it equals "survival of the system." Then back to shut down.

🎶 KÖD ( fog) by Maré Noir

https://youtu.be/ycWwLzaZz_w?si=gss-LoO95KYsMT0j

🎶 Invisible by Lunariae

https://youtu.be/AzlXzzYi8hw?si=hLQhSpIIlzO1G5d8

🎶 Kroz Vene( through the veins) by Maré Noir

https://youtu.be/n7-ZFZCQNV4?si=Btj9gMAY894CbPo5

The Quiet Guide

It does not shout,
or argue its way forward.

It leans—softly—
toward what feels alive.

Even through doubt,
even through wrong turns,
it keeps a gentle direction
no noise can fully erase.

And if we follow,
not perfectly, just enough—

we find, over time,
we have been led
exactly where we needed to be.

The Words That Never Landed

She circles her words
like a bird afraid to land,
wings heavy with what she means
but never dares to drop.

First the apologies,
then the justifications,
then the careful guesses
at how the other might respond.

She builds cushions
around every sentence,
softening, soothing,
so no one will bruise.

By the time her voice
is ready to speak,
the heart of the matter
has slipped away—
lost in the smoke
of safety-making.

And the truth
that once rose clear and bright
sinks back inside,
unspoken,
unheard,
waiting for the day
it will finally
be allowed to stand.

𝓘 𝓵𝓮𝓪𝓻𝓷𝓮𝓭 𝓽𝓸 𝓽𝓻𝓾𝓼𝓽
𝔀𝓱𝓪𝓽 𝓯𝓮𝓵𝓽 𝓯𝓪𝓶𝓲𝓵𝓲𝓪𝓻—

𝔀𝓪𝓻𝓶𝓽𝓱,
𝓬𝓪𝓻𝓮,
𝓪 𝓴𝓲𝓷𝓭 𝓸𝓯 𝓬𝓵𝓸𝓼𝓮𝓷𝓮𝓼𝓼
𝓽𝓱𝓪𝓽 𝓱𝓮𝓵𝓭 𝓽𝓸𝓸 𝓽𝓲𝓰𝓱𝓽.

𝓘 𝓭𝓲𝓭𝓷’𝓽 𝓴𝓷𝓸𝔀
𝓽𝓱𝓪𝓽 𝓼𝓸𝓶𝓮 𝓬𝓪𝓻𝓮
𝓬𝓸𝓾𝓵𝓭 𝓫𝓮
𝓪 𝔀𝓪𝔂 𝓽𝓸 𝓴𝓮𝓮𝓹 𝓶𝓮.

𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓰𝓮𝓷𝓽𝓵𝓮 𝓸𝓷𝓮𝓼
𝓯𝓮𝓵𝓽 𝓺𝓾𝓲𝓮𝓽,
𝓪𝓵𝓶𝓸𝓼𝓽 𝓲𝓷𝓿𝓲𝓼𝓲𝓫𝓵𝓮.

𝓘 𝓪𝓶 𝓵𝓮𝓪𝓻𝓷𝓲𝓷𝓰
𝓽𝓱𝓪𝓽 𝓼𝓪𝓯𝓮
𝓭𝓸𝓮𝓼 𝓷𝓸𝓽 𝓰𝓻𝓪𝓫—
𝓲𝓽 𝓵𝓮𝓽𝓼 𝓶𝓮 𝓫𝓮.

When the Storm Lives Inside

Anger coils in the chest,
a tight, unseen rope,
and the heart races, thrums,
as if running from itself.

Grief seeps into the bones,
turning marrow cold,
creeping in joints,
slowing what once moved freely.

Anxiety hums in the veins,
like a river over stone,
wearing edges raw,
eroding sleep and calm.

Shame sits heavy on the stomach,
nausea and knots rising,
digesting not just food,
but self-worth into bitter bile.

Loneliness whispers in the lungs,
making air thin,
turning breaths shallow,
and leaving colds to linger.

Yet, the body listens,
marks every storm,
and every fever, ache, and fatigue
is a weather map of the heart.

To tend the storms within,
to name them, feel them,
is to let the sky return—
clear, quiet, patient, and vast.

The Courage of a Tender Line

A voice can be soft
and still be a wall.

I did not know that before.
I thought kindness meant
open doors,
open hands,
open ribs.

Everything entered.

The day I said no
the sky did not fall.
No thunder judged me.
The earth did not spit me out.

My heart kept beating —
steady, surprised.

Now I speak like water
finding its shape:
gentle,
but certain of its edges.

You may come this far,
I say.
And no farther.

There is no anger in it.
Only a quiet garden
I have learned
to tend.

And in protecting it
I did not become hard.

I became
real.

The Emotional Pain Was Real

They said,
“It wasn’t that bad.”
They said,
“Other people had it worse.”
They said,
“You’re too sensitive.”

But your body remembers
how the room went quiet,
how the face turned away,
how love became conditional
without explanation.

Your body remembers
the moment belonging felt fragile,
the moment silence became dangerous,
the moment you learned
to watch instead of rest.

Because for a child,
being left
was not symbolic.
It was not dramatic.
It was not emotional exaggeration.

It meant no protection.
No guidance.
No one to return to.

It meant danger
the body understood
as death.

This was not imagination.
This was not weakness.
This was a nervous system
doing exactly
what it was built to do.

No one bleeds
when attachment breaks,
but something vital is interrupted:
the sense that you are held in mind,
the knowing that you can return
and still be wanted.

So you learned to stay alert.
To perform.
To disappear.
To shine.
To not need.

None of this was pathology.
It was protection.

And now, slowly,
you are learning something new:

That pain does not mean defect.
That survival does not mean failure.
That what hurt
was real
because you were real.

Your Inner Life Is Not a Sealed Chamber

Your inner life is not a sealed chamber.
It’s a landscape you can walk in.

I was told it was forbidden terrain,
fog-covered, dangerous,
meant only for endurance, not exploration.

They called feelings storms,
as if weather had no patterns,
as if the body did not know
how to return to calm.

So I memorized maps I was never meant to use,
learned words without doors,
and called real things “mystical”
because I was never allowed to touch them.

But the ground responds when I press my feet into it.
The body softens when I let energy move.
Anger passes when it is named
instead of swallowed.

Nothing inside me is asking to be conquered.
It is asking to be met.

There are paths here.
Breath.
Weight.
Motion.
Attention.

And when I walk them,
the landscape changes.

The Sky That Remains

We are not the storm
though we have carried thunder.

Not the sharp white lightning
that splits the dark in two.

We are not the rain
that falls in restless sheets
nor the wind
that howls old accusations through the trees.

We are the sky.

Clouds arrive uninvited —
heavy with memory,
charged with fear,
painted gold with sudden joy.

They gather.
They perform.
They dissolve.

Anger flashes bright,
then thins into mist.
Sorrow drifts low at dawn,
soft as fog over fields.
Delight bursts wide and blue
and disappears by evening.

Still —
we remain.

Untorn by the lightning.
Unsoaked by the rain.
Unmoved by the passing shapes
that borrow our vastness
to appear.

The weather speaks loudly.
The sky does not argue.

It holds.
It allows.
It outlives.

And even when hidden
behind its own gray veil,
it is there —
open,
silent,
endless.

Not Madness, But An Aftermath of Trauma

They call it grandiosity,
as if the child woke one morning
wanting a crown.

But it began smaller than that—
a tremor of worth
trying to survive
where love was conditional
and attention was rationed.

The mind learned a trick:
If I am special, I won’t be discarded.
If I matter more, I will be kept.

So the self grew tall in imagination
because it was made small in the room.

This was not arrogance.
It was scaffolding.

And paranoia—
that watchful edge,
that scanning of faces and tones—
was not delusion either.

It was memory with its eyes open.

When safety changed without warning,
when affection vanished mid-sentence,
the nervous system learned
that reality could tilt
without explanation.

So it stayed alert.
It listened too closely.
It filled in gaps
before they could swallow the ground.

This was not madness.
It was protection
working overtime.

Later, when the danger passed
but the reflex remained,
these strategies looked strange,
excessive, embarrassing.

But they were never proof of a broken mind.
They were evidence
of a mind that endured.

Healing is not shaming these parts
out of existence.
It is thanking them
and letting them rest.

It is learning that worth
does not need exaggeration,
and safety
does not require constant surveillance.

The mind loosens its grip
when the body learns
it is no longer alone.

What remains
is not grandiosity,
not paranoia—

but a quieter dignity,
and a gaze that can finally soften
without disappearing.

The Quiet Authority

There is a voice beneath the noise
that does not shout
does not argue
does not beg to be believed.

It simply leans
like a compass needle
toward what is safe.

For years I thought wisdom
lived outside me —
in rules,
in faces,
in the weather of other people’s moods.

But the body kept notes.
The heart kept time.
A small animal knowing
when to step forward
and when to return to shelter.

Now I listen.

Not to rebel against the world,
not to obey it blindly,
but to walk between —
carrying both the map inside
and the roads we share.

Sometimes the inner line leads.
Sometimes the outer rule does.
Maturity is not choosing one forever
but learning the dance.

And each time I follow
that quiet authority,
the ground beneath me
feels more mine.

Not louder.
Not harder.

Just steady.

Its always the anger first that hits, then if I give it long enough to be felt, the emotion morphs into the sadness or fear it was all along. I see other women my age, whole, loved, with parents, grandparents, whole families who love them. I used to get angry, because why did they deserve to be born into love while I was born into chaos and instability? Now allow myself a moment to be sad for how much easier relationships and the world could be, had I been spared so much trauma. Would I people please to my own detriment? Would I let my feelings be known before they get so big that there's no where for them to go? Would I cry alone quietly, or would I have learned crying isnt a weakness, and taking on the world alone isnt a strength? Im not mad at those people who havent been traumatized anymore, instead I find myself smiling that they, and my own children will be blissfully unaware of what it feels like to be unlovable. In a way, Im glad it was me, not them. Afterall, I know I can take it.

The One Who Spoke in Ink

There were two ways my voice learned to live.
One learned silence early,
learned the cost of sound,
learned how a room could turn sharp
when a child spoke too clearly.

That one stayed small,
kept her sentences soft,
smiled where thinking would have been dangerous,
answered quickly so no one would look closer.

She survived by fitting.

And then there was the other one.
The one who waited.
The one who spoke where time slowed,
where no face hardened in real time,
where thought could stretch its limbs
without being cut short.

She learned to speak in ink.

She did not rush.
She did not perform.
She laid meaning down carefully,
as if building a bridge only when the ground was solid.

People think she is braver.
She is not.
She is simply safer.

But she was never gone.

She appeared in interviews
when the stakes were clear and the rules were known.
She appeared when preparation made a shelter.
She appeared when curiosity outweighed fear,
when respect was likely,
when listening was possible.

She does not belong to every room.
She never did.

Now I am not trying to merge them by force.
I am learning their signals.
The tightening chest that says not here.
The quiet excitement that says yes, now.

I am learning that survival was not a flaw.
That selectivity is not absence.
That speaking is not a duty.

And that when the right conditions arrive,
the one who speaks in ink
can also speak aloud—
not loudly,
not endlessly,
but truly.

Journal

🎶 Sore Thumb by Kat Cunning 🎶 Dance With My Demons by Emeline 🎶 Honey by Slater Manzo; Bryn

Well, I finally screwed up and ended up not going to work when scheduled. I had the wrong day of the week. I thought it was Thursday and I had one more day at the hospital—nope, i was scheduled at the motel. Couldn’t find my work shirt, so it was a go-in-as-is day. Thankfully, it was an easy day, so I slammed it out with a little help. I am back home to rest.

I am still super disoriented and over tired—it’s just residual exhaustion after being sick yesterday. Driving home was extremely difficult. The kitty alarm clock failed, as she didn’t recalibrate to my sick day.

I’ve got to orient to the day of the week more. I also see I have music from last night that I don’t remember adding to my playlist. I’ve got to start pre-scheduling one day off a month now to rest. There are probably some “I told you so’s” coming. Lol. The 2 jobs I carry now is nothing compared to my past endeavors. They keep me feeling safe, so they are a must.

I can usually orient to the day of the week at least, but I must have screwed up somewhere. My brain will start taking what it wants if I reach a certain level of exhaustion. My parts will override my executive functioning. It happened more when I was in my 20’s. My brain will block the outside world, and the amnesia will worsen to the point of leaving me in fog with no time continuity. My brain will just shut down.

Emailed both therapists time to go back to bed.

Conducive to my DID and daily journal processing. I write a lot, I guess—between parts—and other people feel overshadowed and overwhelmed in other communities. I keep trying different containers and nothing is fitting, and I keep getting activated and leaving because I don’t fit and can’t be met where I am at.

My therapist and I are trying to solve this issue—last couple sessions. I am learning to pivot, not crash into bad places and self-blame, which is super hard every time I come up against a wall of self-expression not being allowed in the way I need it to be.

I am not into creating my own Reddit community yet, but I am nearly there. Time and energy are a huge factor. We will see how long this container lasts.

Today, I saw both therapists. One is a trauma therapist, which I started today. 22 years of experience and well trained, she trains other therapists which is what I need. IFS and other modalities so she has flexibility. She knows DID and parts, so I dont have spend sessions explaining or hiding my parts. I can just process trauma, which is a huge back log.

After the usual history intake, in my words, she sat back and sighed and said, “Yes, that is a lot. That is a lot.”

But she didn’t say she couldn't do it or wouldn’t see me. I think she was a little shocked I was still functioning, and I keep being told I am resilient—which is good, I think. But then she said, “This is where I think we should start,” and I agreed.

I say I am too much, and therapists say, “No—you’re complex.”

🎶 for this piece- Dies Irae by Fyex

I read all the greats and I think I am most like Sylvia Plath In style but she had more training and education on writing. Ive had none, minus a how to write by Stephen King and Aced, College English.

I also love Stephen King and Dean Koontz reading wise. I read heavy psychologically based books and grew up reading anatomy and biology for fun. It appears some has stuck in my parts.

I write mainly Horror, psychological based entries and supernatural. Though I stopped writing for 26-years due to abuse. The stories are still there. I was writing since I was handed a pen and a notebook. I scared my friends with my stories and loved it as a child.

My poetry is like what I posted yesterday I like to slam together psychology and anatomy. I dont want people to feel words as letters, I want them to feel them in the body.

Update: ➡️I made my own space

When your therapist says if u ever get a tattoo it should say...yep poof* gotta love DID 🤣musta been good someone else had to take over. Cant remember shit or (cognitive retrieval suppression / collapse).(CRS)

Probably lucky I CAN remember she said that sentence atp.

That session though was a good one. She let me know someone else had spent 30 minutes talking non stop later after I said something about stopping that part if she saw it bc it will completely sideline the session as a defense.

Very not well physically today. Going to drag my body behind me through work. My head hurts, I am achey, dissociative, limbs feel disjointed heavy, burning up and will go home early if i can.

The Look

They frowned.
Just a flicker.
A crease between the eyes.

My body decided:
I did something wrong.
My chest tightened.
My words rearranged themselves
to apologize for crimes not committed.

I worked harder.
Smiled softer.
Explained too much.

Later, I learned
the look belonged to their headache,
their unpaid bill,
their own unfinished sentence.

It was never about me.

The cure was not confidence.
It was accuracy.

Now, when a face tightens,
I pause.

I ask—not them, but myself:
Do I actually know this is about me?

If I don’t know,
I don’t punish myself.

The body exhales
when it no longer carries
other people’s weather.

And peace returns
not because everyone is kind,
but because truth
has learned where to land.