April 15, 2025 11:41PM - April 18, 2025 13:51PM
Soft Rot
Hi. I don’t really know how to start this, except to say that I’m tired. Not just "didn’t get enough sleep" tired — more like soul-tired. The kind of tired where you sit in silence and hope something inside of you wakes back up.
Lately, I’ve been pretending a lot. Smiling at the right times, saying “I’m good!” when people ask, answering emails like I’m a machine instead of a person. And I don’t even think I realized how much I was pretending until I sat down just now and started typing. The mask is heavy, you know? It’s real heavy.
There’s this low hum of fear under everything lately — like I’m waiting for something to break, or maybe it already has and I’m just the last to notice. I keep asking myself, Is this just what being an adult is? Constantly holding it together with duct tape and good intentions?
And also, here’s the weirdest part: underneath all of that, I still have hope. I don’t even know where it’s coming from. I just… I want more. I want rest. I want to feel like I’m allowed to fall apart without the whole world crashing down with me. I want to believe that it’s okay to not be okay, and that not being okay doesn’t make me weak, or dramatic, or broken.
I’m writing this, I think, because I need to hear it from myself. That I’m still here. That I’m still trying. That showing up — even in this messy, trembling, unsure way — still counts.
Some days, I feel like I’m doing everything just enough to not fall behind. I’m replying to things. I’m showing up. I’m getting dressed most days. But I’m also zoning out mid-conversation, forgetting what I walked into the room for, and crying during toothpaste commercials.
Which, okay — maybe the dog did get adopted and that’s objectively beautiful; but also maybe I’m not okay.
I keep thinking about how everyone’s out there doing things. Running businesses. Raising kids. Writing books. Taking trips. Posting photos with glowing skin and open windows and plates of food that don’t look like cereal at 9 p.m. I’m here trying to remember if I paid that one bill or if that weird noise in my car is a metaphor.¹
There’s this version of me I keep hoping I’ll “get back to.” The one who was energized. Clear-headed. Motivated. The one who didn’t second-guess every decision or feel like the ground might just disappear under her feet some days. But maybe that version is gone. Or maybe she was never really real, just a highlight reel stitched together from better lighting and fewer breakdowns.
I think that’s the scariest part: not knowing what’s normal anymore. Like, is it normal to be this overwhelmed by existing? Is it normal to feel like you’re too much and not enough in the same breath? Is it normal to look in the mirror and not recognize the person blinking back?
And still. Still. I want to believe in softness. In resilience. In mornings that start slow and coffee that tastes like hope. I want to believe I’m allowed to be this version of me — unfiltered, unraveled, unsure — and still be worthy of love. Of belonging. Of good things.²
Because maybe surviving is enough. Maybe telling the truth is enough. Maybe this — this messy, footnote-riddled post — is the most honest thing I’ve done all month.
I used to think if I could just figure it out — the right system, the right routine, the right number of steps in my skincare — then everything would click. That peace was some kind of prize you won after optimizing your calendar and drinking enough water.
Spoiler: I am very hydrated and still feel like a disaster.
I think I’m grieving something I can’t quite name. Not a person. Not a place. But maybe a version of the future I thought I’d be living by now. The imagined life I kept dragging behind me like a blueprint I forgot how to read.
Is it normal to outgrow your own dreams?
Sometimes I catch myself fantasizing about starting over. Just—poof. New city. New name. No unread emails. No mental clutter. Just wide-open mornings and a sense of possibility. But then I realize: I’d still be me. I’d still bring my overthinking, my fears, my stuff.
So maybe it’s not the location that needs to change. Maybe it’s the way I talk to myself.
I don’t know how to be gentle with me. I know how to push through. I know how to carry things. I know how to be “fine.” But gentleness? Grace? That’s a language I’m still learning. And damn, it’s hard.³
And yet. I'm here, aren't I? Still choosing to try. Still showing up in this small, quiet way — by putting words to a feeling I’d much rather bury. That counts for something. I think it has to count for something.
I want to believe it does.⁴
I used to think I had to earn rest. Like I needed to cross some invisible finish line before I could sit down and breathe. But the finish line kept moving. Every time I got close, it shifted a little farther away, whispering, just one more thing. And I believed it. I kept running.
Even when my body said stop. Even when my mind was unraveling like a thread pulled too tight. Even when all I wanted was to lie on the floor and feel something that didn’t hurt. I’ve gotten really good at disappearing without anyone noticing. Smiling with my eyes empty. Responding quickly so no one worries. Posting something light so people assume I’m fine. But inside, it’s loud. It’s chaos.
And I’m so tired of hiding in plain sight.
Somewhere along the way, I picked up this idea that I’m only lovable when I’m useful. That my worth is measured in output, or helpfulness, or how easy I am to be around. I don’t even know where that started. But it’s sunk deep. Like a root wrapped around my ribs. I want to start unlearning it. Slowly. Gently. Like peeling back armor that used to keep me safe, but now just keeps me small.
I want to ask for help without apologizing. I want to rest without guilt. I want to take up space — not with noise or hustle, but with presence. With breath. With truth. I don’t want to perform my way through life anymore. I want to live it. Even if it’s messy. Even if it’s slow. Even if some days, all I do is survive.
That still counts. I still count.⁵
And maybe — just maybe — someone out there needed to hear this. Maybe someone else is sitting in the dark, holding their breath, wondering if anyone sees them.
I do. I see you. I’m right here too.
Okay. Here it is.
I think I’m afraid that if I stop performing, if I stop being useful, pleasant, agreeable, people will leave. Not in a dramatic, movie-ending kind of way. Just slowly. Quietly. Like a room emptying out. Like silence settling in. Dust sitting down. I’m scared of being forgotten. Of being too much. Of not being enough. Of being nothing at all. All at the same time. How?
And it’s not just a fear, it’s a pattern. I’ve watched it happen. I’ve watched people drift when I wasn’t their favorite version of me. I’ve felt love shrink when I stopped shape-shifting. When I dared to say “I’m not okay.” It’s made me so good at editing myself down to the version that takes up the least amount of space.
That’s the rot. The belief that I am only valuable when I’m convenient. That love is earned by performance. That my pain is a burden. That honesty is too loud. That needs are too messy. That my real self is too much to hold. And because of that, I’ve taught myself to pre-abandon. I back away first. I detach. I ghost my own needs. I lower my expectations so no one else has to. I rehearse being left so the real thing doesn’t hurt as much.
But spoiler: it still hurts.
And what no one tells you about this kind of survival is that it works. It works. You stay safe. You stay small. You avoid disappointment. But you also start to disappear. You start forgetting what you even sound like when you’re not trying to please.
And now I don’t always recognize myself. Not in the mirror. Not in my voice. Not in the way I move through the world with carefulness instead of conviction. I want to burn the script I’ve been handed — the one that says “Be palatable. Be useful. Be fine.”
I want to write a new one that says:
Be honest. Be human. Be here. Even if they leave. Even if it’s messy. Even if I’m scared the whole time.⁶
The hardest part is knowing that I’ve done this to myself, too. Not just other people. Me. I’ve abandoned me. Over and over. Silenced myself when I needed to scream. Belittled my pain because someone else had it worse. Laughed when I wanted to cry. Said “it’s fine” so many times that the words feel like poison now. I’ve become fluent in self-betrayal. I know how to invalidate my own feelings before anyone else gets the chance. I know how to say “I don’t need anything” even when I am starving for care. I know how to ghost the parts of me that are inconvenient — the messy parts, the loud parts, the hurting parts — and pretend I am whole.
But I’m not whole. I’m cracked in places I can’t reach. And some days it feels like I’m rotting from the inside out — not in a melodramatic way, but in a quiet, invisible way. Like mold growing under the wallpaper. Like something you don’t notice until it’s everywhere. I’m scared that if people saw the real me — the whole, unedited, unfiltered me — they’d walk away.
Not out of cruelty. Just confusion. Discomfort. Like, “oh, I didn’t know you were that sad.” And what do you even say to that?
Neither did I.⁷
There’s no redemption arc here. Not today. There’s no tidy wrap-up, no clarity, no sudden sunrise. There’s just this. The raw, unfinished truth of it all:
I am not okay. And I’m done pretending I am.
Sometimes I catch myself fantasizing about subtraction — not in a minimalist Pinterest-board kind of way, but in a desperate please-make-it-quiet way. I want fewer tabs open, fewer expectations, fewer demands to be on. I crave space. I crave silence that feels like peace instead of loneliness. I want to do less and feel more. More rooms to enter into with less sneers, less taunts, less sighs. But here’s the catch: at the very moment I’m craving less, I need more (of something else). More reassurance. More softness. More love without performance. More care I don’t have to earn. And isn’t that the paradox? I’m shrinking everything down just to make room for what I’m scared to ask for.⁸
There was a time when I loved being alone. It felt like freedom. A choice. Now it feels more like absence. Like everyone else left the party and I’m still cleaning up, unsure if they’ll come back or if they were ever really here for me in the first place. I don’t know when solitude turned into exile, but I miss the version of me that found comfort in her own company.⁹
I’m tired of being congratulated for coping. For pushing through. For showing up when I’m crumbling inside. There’s this strange praise people give — “Wow, you’re handling so much!”¹⁰ — and it always feels like a compliment wrapped around a cry for help. Like I’m being rewarded for performing wellness while actively falling apart. I don’t want to be resilient today. I want to be soft. Fragile. Unremarkable. I want to exist without being strong all the time.
There’s a fire under this fog. I don’t show it often — it doesn’t look pretty in Instagram captions or Zoom meetings. But it’s there. A deep, guttural frustration at how much I’ve had to endure while smiling. How much I’ve sacrificed for the sake of “not making things harder for anyone else.”¹¹
And I am angry. Angry that I was told to be nice instead of honest. Angry that burnout is treated like a badge instead of a warning sign. Angry that asking for less is seen as laziness and wanting more is seen as greed. And yet — even in the middle of this emotional graveyard — something keeps blooming. It’s not loud. It’s not dramatic. It’s more like a flicker. A whisper. That maybe tomorrow could feel different. That maybe I’m not beyond repair. That maybe something good could still find me, even now. Even here. Hope isn’t a clean thing. Nor soft.¹² It’s messy and suspicious and often shows up in disguise. But it’s here. And I’m learning to let it stay.
I don’t know what version of me will read this months or years from now. I don’t know if she’ll still be tired, done, waiting for the end or if she’ll be lighter, freer, whole or if she'll be she anymore in ways I can’t imagine yet. But I hope she’s proud of me. Of this. Of the trying. Of the truth. I hope she looks back and whispers, “You didn’t give up. Even when it would’ve been easier.”¹³ There you go, that's the hope. The cyclical hope. Hoping for misery (of the future) to disappear while stewing in misery (of the present). Could there be a more Miseria ending?
The Price of Pretending
And now, there’s this new weight — not just emotional, but economic. A slow, creeping violence that wears a suit and calls itself a delay. My salary’s late. Again. And again.¹⁴ And what begins as frustration calcifies into fear. Into guilt. Into the shame of needing what you’ve earned and being made to feel like asking for it is rude. Aggressive. Ungrateful.
Every email I draft to HR feels like an apology. Every sentence is padded in “just checking in” and “kindly requesting” and “if you could please.”¹⁵ As if I’m not fighting for my own livelihood but begging for crumbs. My fingertips are laced with guilt ink, trembling between professionalism and desperation.¹⁶
This is economic abuse with a polite face.¹⁷ It doesn’t scream. It doesn’t hit. But it erodes. Quietly. It makes you question your worth. It makes you doubt your right to stability. It forces you to live in a suspended state — a constant limbo of waiting, adjusting, shrinking.
It’s rapid and vapid, this cycle—when you work in the social sector, giving everything, day and night, for the good of society… and then, when you ask for what you’re owed—what you’ve earned—you’re made to feel like you’re committing a crime. Why?
Why is it that when we advocate for survivor-centric approaches, trauma-informed care, and rights-based systems,¹⁸ our work is praised, published, applauded, and passed around like sacred scripture? But when we demand the same principles within our own organizations—when we say, "treat us like humans, too"—suddenly we’re “ganging up”?
What else are we supposed to do? We have no money. All we have is each other.¹⁹ If we raise our voices together, it’s called rebellion. If we stay silent, it’s compliance.²⁰ Is suffering a requirement to prove our commitment? Is living in pain and overdrafts the currency we pay to access institutional empathy?
Or worse—is our pain their business model?²¹
Is our exhaustion the raw material they polish into reports and pitch decks for donors? Do our trauma-informed designs only matter when they’re outward-facing, never inward-lived?²²
Because it’s starting to feel like we’re not just holding space for others’ pain—we’re being bled for it. Wrung dry for "the cause," while we teach self-care we can't afford, and preach boundaries we’re punished for having.
Home? That sweet, supposed safety net? It turns into a trap the second I crack. The moment I fall apart, I know it’ll snap back and chew me whole — the judgments, the side-eyes, the suffocating “we’ve all had it worse” silence. So I swallow my truth and I budget in fear.
This isn’t just one bad month. This is a pattern that’s so familiar it feels etched in my DNA.²³ Things fall apart. They always do. They get so, so bad. And then maybe—maybe—they start to rise. But I’m tired of surviving the bad. This time, I don’t have the strength to carry the fall again. I want out.
I daydream about running away. Just leaving. Starting over somewhere with clean air and no emails and mornings that don’t begin in dread. I imagine it so vividly it hurts. And then I tuck the fantasy away like a bruise I can’t show. Another scar. No wound. No blood. Just absence.
Footnotes:
¹ It’s probably both. The sound is coming from the dashboard and my fear of failure. Cool cool cool.
² That part was hard to write. My fingers hesitated. But I’m leaving it in. Because I think someone else needs to hear it too.
³ My default setting is “Do better.” The idea of saying “You’re doing your best” makes me want to cry, which probably means I need to hear it more.
⁴ If you’re reading this and nodding along — hi. You’re not alone. I don’t know you, but I’m rooting for you like it’s my full-time job.
⁵ If you only brushed your teeth and scrolled aimlessly today, that’s still something. You’re still here. You’re still trying. That is not small.
⁶ What if the people who leave were never really holding me to begin with? What if the ones who stay — even when I’m raw and real and ruined — are the only ones who matter?
⁷ Grief isn’t always loud. Sometimes it’s just not answering texts and forgetting how to be excited about anything.
⁸ Also, I’m not talking about Marie Kondo “sparking joy” minimalism. I mean the kind of minimalism where your nervous system stops playing the Jaws theme during every group chat notification.
⁹ There’s a difference between being alone and being forgotten. One feels like peace. The other feels like being erased in real time.
¹⁰ Yes, I showered. No, that doesn’t mean I’m emotionally stable. It just means I couldn’t handle one more thing smelling bad today.
¹¹ I want to punch the air every time someone says, “Just take a bubble bath.” Like yes, L, let me exfoliate my generational trauma.
¹² Hope is stubborn. Like a dandelion pushing through concrete. And I hate it for making me believe things could get better. But I also need it. Desperately.
¹³ Also, future-you is gonna be so grateful you kept these words. Even the messy ones. Especially the messy ones. She’s gonna look back and whisper, “Damn. Look at you. Still showing up.”
¹⁴ Yes, I’m aware rent doesn’t accept “emotional satisfaction” as payment. I checked. Repeatedly.
¹⁵ "Just follow up again?” Sure. Let me rephrase my trauma in Excel-friendly language one more time.
¹⁶ The only thing worse than writing a “salary delay” email is re-reading it to make sure I sound grateful enough to not be blacklisted.
¹⁷ If you're wondering what economic abuse looks like in nonprofits, it's often wearing a kurta, quoting Paulo Freire, and ghosting your invoice.
¹⁸ It's funny how “dignity” is always in the mission statement, just never in the payroll cycle.
¹⁹ For a sector built on empathy, we really know how to professionally gaslight our own.
²⁰ HR: “We hear you.”
Me: cool, can you pay me though?
²¹ They say “we’re all a family here.” If this is a family, it’s the kind that eats its young.
²² The real irony? Our trauma-informed workshops have better care models than our actual HR policies.
²³ I want a world where being paid on time isn’t seen as a privilege, but as the bare minimum.
P.S.: This footnote idea taken as an inspiration from Emily Moran Barwick. You can read her post, Hi. I'm Terrified, Creatively Constipated, and Existentially Angsty as Fuck. And I'm Judging Every Word of This Post. And It's Not What I Want It to Be. It is amazing, so amazing, that you will never come back to my blog.
P.P.S.: If you made it this far, congratulations. You’ve survived my nervous system’s entire PowerPoint presentation. And, I know what you're thinking: "Honestly, this could’ve been an email. To your therapist. But here we are."
- Oizys.
