#words-i-needed

[wornbriefly]

Hello how are you? Just wanted to stop and say hi… How’s things? Are you staying hydrated? Are you healthy and happy?

Thank you for such a gentle message. I’m doing my best — some days are heavier than others, but I’m drinking water, taking my meds, and trying to be present. It means a lot that you asked..it’s easy to forget to check in with myself sometimes.

[margins-of-me]

She Never Criticized My Writing

My mom had a suggestion for everything—how I looked, how I acted, how I could’ve done better. Most compliments came with edits. A warning. A way I could improve. But not when it came to my writing. That was the one thing she said I was good at, and left it at that. No notes. No red pen. Just quiet approval.

I never really knew what to do with it. I didn’t believe her then. I’m not even sure I believe it now. But she meant it. I think she did. And even if it didn’t sink in all the way, I still remember how rare it was to be praised without being reshaped.

[margins-of-me]

The Kind of Healing That Pours Through You

I used to think healing would feel like relief. Like coming up for air. Like something soft and clean and sure.

But this kind of healing — the kind I’m in now — doesn’t feel like that. It feels like a breaking open. Like something flooding through all the places I’ve tried so hard to hold together.

I don’t feel lighter yet. I just feel exposed.

But maybe that’s part of it. Maybe things don’t always fall apart — maybe they fall through you first.

[margins-of-me]

You Promised I Wouldn’t Regret It

He made me a rose out of Legos.

I remember thinking, God, I hope I don’t like him too much. I remember feeling nervous in a hopeful way, like maybe this one would be different. Not perfect—just decent. Safe. Fun. Someone who might meet me where I was.

We laughed, kissed, split a couple entrées. He opened my car door. Said thoughtful things. Said he was serious about dating. Said he liked my brain, not just my body. Said a lot of things.

And then, after we slept together—after he made the first move, after we kissed like teenagers and I let myself soften into it—he texted me the next day. Said it wasn’t about judging me. Said he just didn’t like that he had become the kind of guy who has sex on a first date.

As if I was a mirror he didn’t like looking into.

As if I was the mistake and he was the one who needed to get back on track.

I wanted to scream. Or maybe just roll my eyes hard enough to rupture a blood vessel. He promised I wouldn’t regret it. He promised he wasn’t that kind of guy. And then he did exactly what that kind of guy always does: he blamed his discomfort on me and walked away clean.

I’m tired of being someone else’s line in the sand.

Their moment of weakness. Their moral dilemma. Their, “That’s not who I am,” right after becoming exactly that.

It’s always so civil, too. So gentle. So kind. Like if they phrase it nicely enough, I won’t feel used. Like there’s dignity in being the girl who understands.

But I don’t want to understand anymore.

I want someone who doesn’t need to backpedal his way out of intimacy. Someone who won’t make promises just to feel better about breaking them. Someone who doesn't turn my body into a confession booth and then call it a one-time lapse in judgment.

It wasn’t a mistake. It was a choice. We made it.

And I’m not ashamed of that. I just wish he hadn’t been.

[margins-of-me]

I Thought the Lights Would Make Me Feel Something

I kept waiting for the moment it would hit me.

The warmth. The joy. The sense that I belonged here with all these people walking toward the same thing.

But instead I just felt small. Not the good kind — not the kind where you remember the world is bigger than your pain.

Just… invisible.

I walked through the tunnel of lights like I was in a dream someone else was having. I kept trying to match my face to what I thought this should feel like — wonder, maybe. Awe. Nostalgia.

But mostly I just felt tired.

I didn’t want to ruin it for anyone else, so I smiled. I took the photos. I said “wow” a few times.

But inside, it felt like I was standing still while everyone else kept moving forward.

[wornbriefly]

When They Fetishize Your Damage

Content Note: emotional manipulation, kink, trauma, fetishization of mental illness

There’s a specific kind of danger in being desired because you’re fucked up. Not in the tortured-muse, soft-focus way. I mean the people who treat your trauma like it’s lingerie—something they can slip off slowly, trace with fascination, and then use to justify why they never had to earn your trust. People who think your wounds make you easier to control. Easier to break in. Easier to keep.

It feels intimate at first. They ask about your past with this careful, reverent tone. They say they want the “real you,” not the polished version. They tell you how much they admire your strength. But what they’re really saying is: I like that someone else already did the damage. Now I get to play hero without doing the hard work. They want someone broken enough to be grateful for crumbs. Someone who mistakes hyper-attunement for love. Someone whose trauma makes her easier to shape.

With Him, it started like safety. He asked thoughtful questions. He said he saw me—the whole messy, vulnerable, complicated me—and didn’t run. It felt like something solid. But eventually I realized he didn’t want me in spite of my history. He wanted me because of it. He liked that I flinched and apologized. That I second-guessed myself. That I kept trying to earn softness from someone who only offered it when I was on edge. The more I shrank, the better he seemed to feel.

This kind of dynamic isn’t always overt abuse. Sometimes it hides under kink language—caretaking, nurturing, D/s, emotional ownership. But what’s really happening is fetishization. Of depression. Of addiction. Of instability. There are people who seek out partners with trauma not to support their healing, but to claim it. They don’t want to understand your pain. They want to possess it. To wear your suffering like a badge of depth. Like they’re special for “handling” you.

The cruelest part is, when you’ve been through enough, it’s easy to confuse that intensity for love. When someone looks you in the eye and says, I want all your worst parts, it feels like being chosen. But it’s not love. It’s consumption.

If someone only wants you when you’re hurting, but disappears the moment you grow? That’s not devotion. It’s dependence on your brokenness. If they say they want “all of you,” but only seem comfortable when you’re small, that’s not intimacy—it’s control. And if their version of dominance requires your instability to thrive, it’s not kink. It’s cruelty dressed up as care.

You’re not a test of someone’s patience. You’re not a fixer-upper for someone’s ego. You’re not a story for someone to retell like they rescued you. Anyone who makes you feel like your trauma is the most interesting thing about you doesn’t deserve to touch what you’ve survived.

[margins-of-me]

When the Scene Blurs the Scar

This started as a question I was asking myself quietly: Is this kink, or is this self-harm? And the answer — unsatisfyingly but honestly — is sometimes: both. and neither. and it depends.

For years, pain was how I coped. Not all the time, not in the ways people assume. But when things got too loud or too hollow, I’d default to control via sensation — sharp, fast, private. I never liked talking about it, because it felt like letting someone into a room that wasn’t safe to visit. And in a way, I still carry that discomfort, even now that the shape of it has changed.

Kink entered my life not as a replacement for self-harm, but as something that, strangely, helped me begin to understand the urge behind it. The structure of a scene — the consent, the safety, the shared intention — gave the pain a different container. It wasn’t about punishing myself anymore. It was about exploring limits. Surrendering control in one way while reclaiming it in another.

And it turns out, I’m not the only one who’s felt that overlap. There’s growing research around this — how some people with self-harm histories use consensual pain in kink as a coping tool or healing mechanism. A 2014 study in the Journal of Sexual Medicine found that BDSM participants reported lower levels of psychological distress, higher levels of secure attachment, and better overall well-being compared to the general population. Another paper in Archives of Sexual Behavior highlighted how for some, kink becomes a kind of structured catharsis — a way to experience intensity without isolation.

That resonates with me. Because the biggest difference, honestly, is witnessing. Self-harm was always something I did alone, in secret, afterwards filled with shame. Kink, when it’s rooted in trust, gives me space to be seen inside the pain — and cared for through it. That shift, from secrecy to visibility, from isolation to aftercare, matters more than I can explain. It’s what makes it healing instead of harmful.

Of course, this isn’t everyone’s story. And I still check in with myself constantly. Am I grounded before I play? Do I want this because I want it, or because I’m trying to disappear? Am I giving someone permission, or just hoping they’ll do what I don’t want to ask for?

Those questions are hard, but necessary. Because this isn’t just about sex or sensation — it’s about the oldest wounds learning a new language. And I want to speak it fluently enough to know when I’m asking for care, not chaos.

[margins-of-me]

I Wanted It to Feel Easier

Before the date, I was spiraling. I had that familiar nervous energy where everything feels a little too loud — picking the right outfit, overthinking my makeup, wondering how to laugh if he says something that isn’t funny. I liked the idea of him, but I was already bracing for it to feel like too much. He wanted to take me to a vintage market and then back to his place, where he lives with his parents. Also present: his aunt and uncle. Which is… a lot.

I kept reminding myself I could leave if I needed to. That I didn’t owe anyone the most charming, agreeable version of myself just to keep the peace. And I meant it. I really did.

And then I went. And now I’m home, trying to sort out how I feel.

He was nice. He was a little awkward. Not in a dealbreaker way, just in a way that made me feel like I had to do a bit too much of the work. Like I was holding the atmosphere together. Every time he kissed me, he leaned in with his mouth already wide open, which I wasn’t prepared for — and honestly? It made me kind of dread the next time it would happen. Like I had to gear up for it. That sounds dramatic, I know. But it’s what I felt.

His family was fine. Polite. His mom didn’t seem into me, though. Nothing obvious, just that quiet, cool energy you can feel in the room. Like I wasn’t what she pictured. Maybe she picked up on the same tension I was feeling and decided I wasn’t the right fit. I don’t blame her, honestly.

There wasn’t anything wrong. That’s what keeps circling in my head. Nothing dramatic happened. But I left feeling tired. And not in the cozy, full-day kind of way — in the way you feel after you’ve been performing soft, agreeable energy for hours. I didn’t feel lit up or excited. I felt like I could finally exhale.

And maybe that’s all I need to know.