Bad habits
Can you change your fate?
I guess it all depends on which angle you are looking at this, an argument can be made about how our actions led us down a certain path and eventually to a specific place and another can be made about how our environment is responsible for all the things we did. Either ways I think it all comes down to the same thing at the end of the day.
By real Jema10 months ago in Confessions
Mastering Conflict with the Indirect Aggressor
Engaging in a debate or conflict with an individual who employs passive-aggressive tactics can be profoundly frustrating, often leaving you exhausted and questioning your own perceptions. Unlike overt aggression, which is direct and confrontational, passive-aggression is a subterranean form of hostility, marked by a resistance to demands for adequate performance in social or occupational situations, frequently alternating between obstructionism and deliberate inefficiency. It is a veiled attempt to exert control, punish, or express anger without the personal risk of open confrontation.
By Humberto Jaeres11 months ago in Confessions
I Didn’t Walk Away I Just Stopped Walking Toward What Hurt Me
There wasn’t a dramatic ending. No slammed doors. No announcements. No “I deserve better” speech. Just one ordinary day, I woke up and realized my energy felt too expensive to waste on places where I kept shrinking.
By Ayesha Writes11 months ago in Confessions
On the opposite chair… no one.
On the opposite chair… no one. Me… I don’t know who I am. Every morning, I open my eyes to myself as if seeing me for the first time. A stranger to me, tired of me. I search for my self among my features, but nothing stays. Sometimes I feel I deserve the universe, sometimes I hate myself as if I were a crime. Nothing is stable. No feeling lasts. No thought remains without turning against me. Do I love you? Yes, with all of me, to the point of dissolution. But a delayed reply, a wrong tone, is enough to make me feel you’re betraying me. Then I hate you… and then I cry for hurting you. Is this madness? I don’t know. But I feel ruled by reactions I can’t control. And every time I try to explain, they call me dramatic. Every goodbye tears me apart. Even a small, passing goodbye leaves a crater inside me. I don’t just attach… I cling — madly — because something in me is unhinged. When I’m with others, I seem restless, demanding, volatile. But no one sees the fire under my skin. I fight my thoughts every second: you don’t love me, you’ll leave me, you lied when you said I’m here. I turn from a trembling child to a roaring beast… within minutes. Then I regret. And I punish myself. Then I need you again, and I beg, and I apologize a thousand times. Relationships, to me, aren’t simple. They’re the edge of a knife — either I melt into you or I cut you. Fear, for me, isn’t passing. It’s a wall of pain pressing on my chest. And whenever they tell me calm down, I feel they’re asking me to stop breathing. All that is in me wanted to love — but what’s in me also… doesn’t know how. And when this war grew too heavy, I went out between two points with no road between them. That’s how the day ends, as everything in me ends: on the edge of regret, and the beginning of collapse. I close the outside, and return inside — to the place where no one sees me. To myself. I am… from the inside and the outside, ruin in the shape of a man. I came back to my room after a day heavy with fear, filled with hate, stagnant with sadness. Everything was in its place, yet everything felt strange — even me. I didn’t take off my shoes. I didn’t turn on the light. I left the door half open. Sat on the chair. The silence was loud — too loud — and it made my heartbeat sound like footsteps of someone else in the room. I tried to breathe quietly, afraid to disturb the ghosts of my own thoughts. No doctor, no friend, no presence but mine. I was facing something that looked like me and didn’t. That voice that never quiets, never leaves, never lets me die in peace. I lifted my gaze toward the opposite seat. It was empty of everything — except me. I was there, with accusing eyes, with a face that knew everything I hide. I looked at myself as one searching for a crime not yet confessed. My silence was my witness, and I was the judge, the witness, and the guilty one. “How are you now?” “I’m fine.” I said it without hesitation — but I lied. I’m not fine. I slept two hours. I cried without a reason — or maybe because of all the reasons. I felt I didn’t deserve air. I hated myself, and I needed an embrace that wouldn’t ask why are you crying? “What weighed you down this week?” “Small things, maybe I’m overreacting.” But inside, I was screaming: everything hurts. A glance, a stray word, a delayed message — I choke. “Is he bored of me? Is he planning to leave?” I imagined my days without him. I fear loneliness. I fear repeating myself without someone. Sometimes I scroll through old conversations, searching for a moment that proves I was once loved. Sometimes I listen to my own voice notes, just to remember how I sound when I’m not breaking. “Did you ever think of hurting yourself?” I sighed. Then said: “No… just tired.” But the truth? Every night, the thought visits me. Not because I want to die, but because the noise in my head won’t stop. I want silence. Peace. Rest. I want my war to lay down its weapons. “Do you feel understood?” I laughed, bitterly: “Maybe not… maybe it’s my fault.” Then lowered my head and whispered: No one understands me — and I don’t blame them. How can they understand someone who loves you and screams at you? Who begs for your hug and pushes you away? I’m not evil. I’m just scared. Scared of repetition, of abandonment, of myself. Do they understand me? No. No one does. Even I barely do. How can they? How can my contradictions be understood? I love them, yet I shout. I need them, yet I drive them away. I attach too fast, drown in details, and explode for small reasons. And after every explosion, I collect the ashes of what I broke and hold them close — because even ruins feel safer than emptiness. All I ask is: don’t leave. I’m not cruel. I’m not toxic. I’m just scared. Scared of being forgotten. Of being replaced — my hug, my words, my place. Scared to love… and then be left. I am fragile, but I hide it in anger, in stubbornness, in sharp words. I love fiercely, but I don’t know how to show it without hurting myself or the ones I love. There are nights when I whisper to the dark: please, teach me how to be gentle. But even the dark stays quiet, as if afraid of me. Everything in me is an old wound. Everything I say is an attempt to understand myself. But I get tired. Tired of me, my face, my mind, my never-sleeping fear. “What do you wish for?” “To be understood — just once. For someone to say: I’m here, I’m not afraid of you, or of you. To be held without a question, without a reason. For someone to stay when I’m at my worst.” To be looked at without being analyzed. To be loved without being fixed. To rest without feeling guilty for resting. I waited so long, until I forgot what I was waiting for. Forgot my face, forgot who stood on the other side. And when I grew tired of waiting, I began waving to myself from afar — as if I were the one leaving, and the one begging not to be left. And in the moment I thought I understood myself — I was gone. The room was empty. The chair moved on its own. And the mirror reflected nothing. Not me. Not the one who asked. Not the one who answered. The voice that never leaves… had left.
By Ahmed Wagdy11 months ago in Confessions
Why I Stopped Chasing Motivation (And What I Do Instead)
For most of my twenties, I chased motivation the way people chase quick success. I’d watch endless motivational videos, read self-improvement quotes, and tell myself that tomorrow I’d finally start being productive. Tomorrow, I’d wake up early, crush my goals, and live like the people in those inspiring montages. But tomorrow rarely came. And when it did, I felt the same lack of drive, the same resistance, the same craving for another dose of motivation to get going.
By Queen f11 months ago in Confessions
Word of the Day: 罪悪感
I think I passed my Japanese Quiz. I don't feel like bragging, I just feel like that is true. I don't feel good about it either though. I feel like I am cheating some how but, as I am explaining to my classmates completely more advanced words in Japanese, I just realized, I studied in advanced.
By Kayla McIntosh11 months ago in Confessions
I Don't Want
Introduction This was from a post I wrote on Seven Days In from 2018. It was only two hundred words, so I thought I could extend it as it brought a couple of other things to mind, so I have used that as the start to this Vocal Confessional story.
By Mike Singleton 💜 Mikeydred 11 months ago in Confessions
