I AM THE PROBLEM

There’s a moment that hits harder than betrayal, harder than heartbreak, harder than watching your life collapse in slow motion. It’s not loud. It doesn’t come with drama or screaming. It’s quiet. It’s the moment you realize you’re not just surviving the fucking chaos… you’re partially responsible for it.

You look at the trail behind you. The burned bridges. The people who came close and then vanished. The versions of yourself that kept getting discarded like they were fucking disposable. And eventually the pattern becomes impossible to ignore. At some point, the world stops being the villain and you’re forced to stare directly at the common denominator.

You.

That realization is violent in its own way. Because it means you don’t get the comfort of blaming bad luck or shitty people anymore. You don’t get to hide behind the idea that you were just unlucky in love or repeatedly misunderstood the room. You have to confront the possibility that you allowed too much, tolerated disrespect, overextended yourself, got distant, and trained people how to treat you.

You start replaying everything. The moments you ignored your instincts. The times you gave more than you had because you were afraid of being alone. The way you showed up intensely, openly, passionately… and somehow still ended up being fucking optional. Useful, but never essential. Wanted for what you provided, not for who you were.

And when this keeps happening, something dark creeps in. The thought that maybe there’s something in you that causes the reaction. Something that makes people comfortable taking advantage of you and disregarding you. Something that signals it’s okay to discard you when they’re done. That maybe you’re not desired. Not chosen. Not seen. Not inspiring. Just… available.

That thought will either destroy you or wake you up.

Most people run from it. They numb it with distractions, relationships, alcohol, noise, validation. Others internalize it and rot quietly. But there’s another option, and it’s the hardest one of all.

You remove yourself from the entire equation.

Not suicide. That’s not strength, that’s escape. This is worse than that. This is choosing isolation with intention. This is stepping back and admitting you don’t yet know what’s broken, how it broke, or why it keeps fucking repeating in what's left of your shitty life. You just know something inside you needs to be confronted and fixed or changed, not buried.

So you sit in it. Fully. No fucking distractions. No external validation. No one to mirror you back to yourself or feed you with false confidence. Just silence, discomfort, and honesty. You feel the shame instead of outrunning it. You let the questions exist without forcing answers. You stop pretending you’re healed just because time has passed and you think fast and overthink everything.

Because awareness without action is just self-hatred dressed up as shallow insight.

Once you see the problem, responsibility shifts. Now it’s on you to change. Not to prove anything to anyone else. Not to win someone back, because fuck cheaters. Not to be more palatable or easier to love. But because you are done being a version of yourself that can be casually thrown away like fucking garbage.

That’s what a reset actually is.

It’s not a fucking glow-up. It’s not disappearing for attention. It’s not becoming harder or softer to survive. It’s tearing down your foundation completely and rebuilding it with intention. Deciding who you are when no one is watching. Defining your values when they aren’t being tested by someone else’s approval.

So yes, I am stepping away.

Not from life. Not from work. Not from creating. I will of course still exist. I will still show up where it matters. But I'm stepping away from being available for disrespect or shallow purposeless interactions. From shaping my life around someone else’s feelings, goals, or fucking comfort. From measuring my worth by whether someone chooses to stay with me, see me, or want me.

I am taking a year. Maybe less. Maybe more. To live only for me and no one else.

After divorce. After destruction. After realizing how much of myself I gave away without demanding anything back, this is the only move that makes fucking sense. You don’t decorate a house with a broken foundation. You tear it down and rebuild it properly.

Who am I when I’m not trying to be wanted? What do I stand for when I stop negotiating my boundaries? How do I become irreplaceable, not because I beg to be kept, but because my presence actually fucking means something?

That’s the work now.

It will be uncomfortable. Lonely. Quiet. Unforgiving. And absolutely necessary.

This journey won’t be pretty. It won’t be polite. It won’t be digestible. It will cost me family and friends. But it will be honest. Every thought, every realization, every uncomfortable truth will live inside FYSFEE because this is my only release of anger and rage. This is my voice in an empty room that allows me to feel and process.

This is mine. It always has been. And no one gets to take it from me.