Disappearing Became a Reflex Before It Was a Choice

“When we are not allowed to exist fully, we learn to survive by being pleasing.” — Prentis Hemphill

I didn’t grow quiet because I had nothing to say.
I learned how to vanish without moving.
Eyes still open.
Mouth still polite.
Soul evacuated.

I memorized their moods
the way soldiers memorize terrain.
Not for curiosity,
but survival.

If I became the answer to their unspoken questions,
they’d stop asking me to change.
So I did.
Again.
And again.
And again.

Until even I stopped asking
what I wanted.

I thought that meant I’d finally become easy to love.
But I was just easier to ignore.

“When safety depends on being easy to love, the body learns how to disappear on command. You get smaller until silence starts to feel like peace. That can be unlearned.”

There’s a difference between choosing quiet and being trained into it. Most of us didn’t retreat because it felt safe. We retreated because it was safer than being too much. Too loud. Too honest. Too inconvenient. Love came with rules, and breaking them meant punishment. Withdrawn affection. Sharp glances. Silence that bit.

So we adapted. We became good at knowing what version of us would be tolerated. We read between tones. We smiled on cue. We made ourselves agreeable enough to earn space in rooms that never felt like they belonged to us. And the worst part was that it worked.

Over time, we mistook this performance for personality. We began to think we were naturally low-maintenance. Easygoing. Private. But beneath that identity was exhaustion. The kind of exhaustion that comes from being a different person in every room, especially when none of them feel like home.

Healing begins the moment you stop asking who you need to be to stay loved, and start asking who you never got to be in the first place. That question doesn’t need a perfect answer. It just needs a voice strong enough to stop whispering and start living.

I’ve poured everything into this. Healing Thoughts II: 33 Poems and Meditations for Emotional Renewal is up for preorder now. Release date: October 1. These pages carry the deepest, sharpest work I’ve done, and I can’t wait for them to be in your hands.

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If this hit a nerve, you’re not alone.
Healing Thoughts is where I say the quiet parts loudly.
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It’s only getting rawer from here.