Maybe I Wasn’t the Problem

For a long time, I thought I was the problem.

Everyone else seemed perfectly content living their lives.
My partner—laughing warmly with coworkers—while I got the HR-representative version: measured, evaluative, like they were managing my file instead of sharing my life.

My friend tossing me just enough crumbs of attention to keep me on the hook, then vanishing into their own orbit.
Friends busy, schedules full, lives carrying on.

Meanwhile, I was the one analyzing every angle like a detective at a crime scene, trying to figure out why I couldn’t just be fine like everyone else.
Mistaking crumbs for banquets.
Thinking if I were less needy, the plate would finally fill.

But here’s what I finally realized:
I wasn’t the problem.
I was just the only one who stopped pretending.

Everyone else was coasting on autopilot, content to cover the cracks with another coat of paint.
I was the one who noticed the foundation was rotting and decided to stop living in a collapsing house.

Living with someone who treats your heart like a quarterly performance review
isn’t intimacy — it’s corporate compliance.

And when the highlight of your partner’s check-ins is a text about the weather — “it’s raining hard” — while you’re living separately to evaluate the marriage and they’re busy making social plans… does that sound like someone invested in preserving it?

Everyone else seemed fine because they were committed to the performance, not the truth.
Illusions are easier to maintain—until someone flips on the lights.

That’s the inconvenient truth about growth:
it makes you look like the problem to people who’d rather keep things exactly as they are.

So no, I wasn’t broken.
I just became allergic to denial. 💙