Author’s Note:
This piece isn’t polished. It’s how my thoughts ran at the time. I’m sharing it as it came, because that’s part of the story too. If it feels messy, that’s because it was.
When the world you know turns against you—when the people you love become enemies, when you’re betrayed again and again—it’s easy to build a brick wall and push everyone out. It’s self-preservation. Not always a choice.
It can look like the fear of answering the door. The fear of looking at your phone. The stress of unread messages, the weight of apologies you owe, the risk of reactions you can’t control. Explaining why you went AWOL feels like gambling with your dignity.
And betrayal doesn’t always come as a knife in the back. Sometimes it’s subtle: being rushed to “get over it,” being silenced with toxic positivity.
That’s why the people who stay matter. The ones who don’t try to fix or dismiss you. The ones who simply hold space.
For me, one of those people was my hairdresser. Once a month, she came to my home. Yes, she was there to dye my hair—but that hour was human contact I desperately needed. She knew my family, she knew the dynamics, and she validated me in ways that kept me afloat. That one small act of self-care became survival.
It’s devastating to wake up one day and feel like you have no one. Not in the way you thought or the way you need. The sudden isolation hit me hard. (The sudden isolation that had been creeping up on me for years.)
And yet, even in that isolation, there was someone —unexpected, ordinary, and steady – who got me through.
Leave a Reply