What Grows in Silence
They got louder when I got still.
I have been called a lot of things lately.
None of them kind.
Some of them weren't just insults.
They were attempts to reduce me,
to question my womanhood,
to treat my humanity as negotiable.
Not a real woman.
Too emotional.
Ungrateful.
Undeserving of anything good.
I’ve watched important days pass without acknowledgment, and slowly learned not to expect much in return.
And in the silence after those moments — the kind where you stare at the ceiling and feel yourself shrinking — I understood something:
Silence doesn’t always grow flowers.
Sometimes it grows clarity.
That’s the first thing I noticed.
The second thing?
Clarity changes what you’re willing to tolerate.
I didn’t get louder back.
I didn’t argue.
I didn’t explain.
Because for the first time, I understood that defending myself to someone determined to diminish me is not strength.
Walking away is.
I just… stopped.
And that’s when everything started showing itself.
Silence is clarifying.
When you stop fighting for understanding,
people reveal whether they were ever trying to understand you at all.
Fighting got me nowhere.
Devotion got me nowhere.
Loyalty got me nowhere.
I gave everything and it didn't protect me.
Effort doesn't control outcomes.
And that almost broke me.
Because I built my entire nervous system on the belief that if I tried hard enough, loved hard enough, explained clearly enough, sacrificed enough, I could control how safe I felt.
Trauma wiring says:
If you're disappointed, erase yourself.
That’s not true.
Silence isn’t self-erasure.
Silence is self-containment.
Silence means:
I'm thinking.
I'm recalibrating.
I'm no longer performing for approval.
I'm not dissociating.
I'm not melting down with seven personalities.
I'm not ignoring you.
I'm choosing where my energy goes.
Boundaries.
Access.
Silence.
They're all intertwined.
Giving doesn't force someone to value you.
Silence doesn't magically make someone protective.
Devotion doesn't guarantee reciprocity.
You can try fourteen times.
It'll still not be enough for someone committed to misunderstanding you.
And here’s the feral part:
If my boundaries bother you,
you're not a victim of them.
You're simply no longer benefiting from my lack of them.
I'm not holding on.
But my nervous system remembers.
It remembers the twisting of words.
The exaggerations.
The gaslighting.
The “you’re too much.”
The subtle suggestion that love is only available if I behave correctly.
No.
Love is not a prize for compliance.
And here’s what nobody tells you about silence:
When you stop explaining,
you find out who only loved access to you —
not you.
Today was heavy.
There was wine on the table.
For the first time in a long time,
it was right there.
And I didn’t let it control me.
Not because I’m strong.
Not because I’m healed.
But because I'm growing.
Roots don’t make noise.
Seeds germinate underground.
The strongest part of a tree is the part no one sees.
You thought I disappeared.
I was rooting.
I don't need to be invited into rooms where I'm tolerated.
I don't need to shrink to be safe.
I don't need to argue my reality into existence.
Silence isn't weakness.
It's filtration.
It's selection.
It's self-protection without spectacle.
What grows in silence?
Discipline.
Clarity.
Sobriety.
Boundaries.
Standards.
Authority.
And a version of me that no longer needs applause to know she's real.
They got louder when I got still.
I got stronger.
And I did it quietly.
