Be more like a man.

Be anyone but yourself.

I tell you that I'm telling my truth so you feel a little less alone in yours. But the honest-to-God truth is that I'm still telling it through a filter. And I'm not sure how to completely remove it -- the filter, I mean -- without being fully transparent about the battles I face every day.

I get so tangled in the words I choose. Afraid I'll sound stupid when I look back. Afraid I'll say something that makes someone uncomfortable, that I'll hurt someone I care about -- which is never my intention.

Old videos make me cringe. I'm talking about my TikTok here.

"You should've known better than that," the demon bitch whispers in my head.

Someone is going to think I'm an idiot. I think I'm an idiot. So I delete the videos -- not the written word. This is what I do. I hype myself up, I record, edit, post... watch it a dozen times... and then, hours or days later, I delete it. Humiliated that I would post myself, and then angry with myself for letting the demon bitch win.

It's a cruel cycle that chips away at my self-worth.

I've Done the Work

I know better than this. Logically. I know my message isn't meant for everyone, but it is meant for someone. And when I delete it... I feel furious with myself. What the hell am I doing any of this for??

I am, undoubtedly, my worst enemy.

If you could hear the things that rattle through my head, you'd be horrified for me. Honestly, I wish you could hear them -- just for a minute -- so you'd understand the war I fight daily just to show up. Maybe you'd offer me a hug. Maybe you'd speak with a little more patience, a little more clarity, to help make sure I don't get swallowed by the dark demon bitch that has ruled my brain.

No, I don't want pity. Leave that back at the gas station down the street. But I do need compassion. I do need understanding. I do need time to process emotions. Things I know I must learn to give myself. I'm trying.

The Question That Cracked Something Open

Someone read my entire I Wasn't Taught to Stay series -- a four-part spiral through 33 moves in 45 years of life. And they asked me something I've been turning over ever since.

The question was: has there been a cost? Yes.

I've been mentally unstable for decades. My professional life is a joke. My personal life? A train wreck that crashed 20 years ago and somehow is still on fire.

Every morning I wake up and force myself to say affirmations like: I am who I am, and that is enough. Because if I don't, the loathing takes over, and I spend all day fighting it. At least now, I've learned the affirmations. That counts for something. And they are working.

I start projects. I finish them. And then I let them die -- because I don't have the strength to promote myself again. My work, my voice, my talent. Scratch that: I've never had the strength. It's always been a performance. A survival strategy. A lie I kept rehearsing. And there's just no energy left.

Writing is the only thing that makes me feel free. Unfiltered. Unhidden. Unchained.

So this space, this page, this post... it's sacred to me. It's where I promised myself I would tell the truth.

In My Real Life

And to do that, you need to know: in my real life, I don't always show up in ways that make me proud. I try. With all my might. I'll give myself that.

I've tried to have the hard conversations. I've tried to invite people into my truth, into the process that works for me -- into the healing methods I've had to piece together from fragments of pain and revelation. But not everyone is ready. Everyone's carrying their own invisible battles. I know that.

And not everyone can, or wants to, conceptualize the kind of work I'm doing. The work of moving from survival to something resembling thriving. From fear to truth. From chaos to clarity.

It makes it incredibly hard to be around the people I care for most. The ones I wish I could just be with fully, honestly, unedited. But instead, I find myself building walls. Placing boundaries that ache. Disconnecting when all I really want is to be held in the kind of safety I'm still learning to give myself.

I'm not angry at them. I'm just... exhausted. And sometimes, I'm grieving the version of connection I always hoped we could have, but never quite figured out how to create.

The Dealership and the Dam

Yesterday, we had a family disappointment. I'd found a car for my daughter. We had the funds, the plan, the green light. Then the dealership sold it out from under us before we could arrive.

Not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things. But here we are.

Here's what spiraled through me: the universe protected us from a bad deal. We will take our business elsewhere. Irritation. Anger. Disappointment for my daughter -- I hate letting her down. Deep gratitude that we can even do this for her. We will find the right car.

All of it needed to be felt. I've learned this through my healing process: disappointment must move through me, like water through a dam.

But I don't skip ahead anymore. I can't just get over it. And if you try to make me, rage tends to make an appearance.

Enter: My Mother

"Men learned to put their emotions aside back in the caveman days so they could work together to kill a mammoth. If you could just be more like a man."

I know my mother loves me. That's not in question. But love doesn't erase the damage.

What's hard -- what's nearly unbearable some days -- is how loud her voice still is in my head. Even now. After all this time. After all the work I've done. It's embarrassing that I can't just shut it up.

And I hate that version of me... the one that gets triggered. I hate that people have witnessed her. But she lives too close to the surface. She wasn't born of malice; she was born of silence. Of disappointments never grieved. Of moments swallowed whole. Of truth stuffed down with a fake smile, a shrug of the shoulders, or a lost connection.

So when that version of me explodes -- when the rage leaks out or the sarcasm gets sharp or I shut down completely -- I don't just feel bad. I feel disgusted with myself. Like I've failed some secret test of healing.

And the voice, the dark demon bitch, cuts me down before anyone else can. The lashing I give myself when I mess up, when I snap, when I feel too much.

It's not because I want to hurt anyone. It's because I haven't yet figured out how to stop hurting myself. And my instinct is to go inward, where the dark demon bitch has claimed the throne long ago.

— AudraHealing out loud, so you don't have to heal in silence.