"Sometimes silence feels safer, but the truth deserves to be told. This is a part of my story — about control, invisibility, and reclaiming my voice."

I didn’t set out to tell this story to punish anyone. 

I’m telling it because silence became heavier than the truth.

For a long time, I questioned whether what happened to me even “counted.” There were no bruises people could point to. No single explosive moment that made everything obvious. What there was instead was a slow erosion — of confidence, safety, clarity, and eventually my sense of self.

I was involved with someone who held emotional power over me. On the surface, everything looked ideal. He was polished, composed, generous — a gentleman by every outward measure. To the outside world, he appeared thoughtful and attentive, the kind of person others admired. His image was carefully maintained.

Over time, I began to feel invisible. Conversations became destabilizing. My reactions were scrutinized and dissected, while his behavior went largely unquestioned. I found myself apologizing frequently — sometimes without fully understanding what I was apologizing for.

I did not step away from this situation in a moment of clarity or strength. Everything came crashing down. The emotional strain I had been carrying quietly, constantly, finally became too heavy to contain.

Even after the collapse, the control did not end. When I began processing my experience privately, I was met with a warning: not to speak, not to write, not to name my reality. My healing was only acceptable if it remained silent.

And yet, even after it all ended, the erasure continued. Everything we had built together — the bench and table we won at the Templeton FFA auction, the garden and flowers we planted — was removed, as if I had never existed. Even the cruelty escalated into words that suggested I should not survive.

I will tell the rest of this story — what it took to reclaim my life and my voice — but that chapter is still being written.