This is not a callβout, a plea or a rescue mission. It is an observation.
You look like you are fading.
Not in a poetic way. Not in a romantic βlost soulβ way. In a physical, cellular, alarming way. You have aged years in months. That does not happen when someone is doing okay. That happens when a body is under siege. That happens when a nervous system has been in free fall for too long.
You keep telling people you are bad at talking.
You keep apologising in advance for the same behaviours.
You keep naming your addiction like it is an injury someone else gave you, instead of a condition you are responsible for managing.
Those words are not accountability.
They are stall tactics.
At some point, βIβm poor at thisβ stops being a confession and becomes a shield.
I stopped trying to help months ago. Not because I do not care. Not because I am cold. But because watching someone drown while they refuse to grab the rope turns into a slow kind of self-harm for the person standing on shore.
You do not need more understanding, grace, or people rearranging themselves around your stagnation.
You need movement.
Tiny movement would count. Ugly movement would count. Reluctant, resentful, halfβassed movement would still count.
But you are choosing none.
Sleeping all day is a choice.
Not seeking treatment is a choice.
Leaning into helplessness is a choice.
Letting people feel uneasy in their own homes is a choice.
Calling avoidance βinjuryβ is a choice.
None of this makes you evil.
But it does make you responsible.
You are not cursed.
You are not uniquely broken or a tragic exception to the rules of growth.
You are a person who is standing at a fork in the road and pretending not to see it.
I am worried because I have watched what happens when people stay here. They do not suddenly wake up transformed. Nor do they get a cinematic turning point. They just⦠get smaller.
Quieter. Thinner. Dimmer.
Until one day the version of them that had opinions, humour, edges, and friction is mostly a rumour.
I do not want that for you.
But I also accept that wanting it does not make it happen. So this is not me asking, coaxing or negotiating.
This is me naming what I see: You are disappearing. And if you decide not to disappear, that decision has to be yours.
Not because someone did not love you enough.
Many people love you. Many people have loved you. And you pushed them aside.
Not because someone waited long enough.
You are not an album on Spotify we are waiting to drop.
If you want people to stay in your life, show up for yourself.
Promises of change are only words.
Not because someone explained it perfectly.
Nothing anyone says or does can save you. You have been to the best hospitals. Listened to testimonies in rehab. Nodded along with numerous therapists. Loved ones have held your hand. Some have given you the kind of tough love that only real affection can offer.
No one can chart your course for you.
You are the only one who can navigate your life. Because you finally got tired of watching yourself fade. Maybe you are exhausted from all the care that has been poured into you. Maybe you feel guilty because you cannot live up to what you think others expect.
Stop thinking about what others want from you.
What is actually wanted is simple: Your overall improvement.
For you to be okay with being you. Not someone elseβs version of perfection.
Just yours.
Quit being so hard on yourself.
No one is standing in front of you with a clipboard grading your every breath.
You are going to fail.
How else would you learn? And you need to learn. This is how you get up.
This is how you move on.
Or you can merge into that pillowβtop mattress in your cosy loft, season after season. Until your legs stop working. Until you need someone to change your adult diapers. Until someone else has to move the legs you can no longer feel.
Sometimes you feel the sun through the window. Or was that just in your dream?
Hard to tell when you sleep your life away.
