Am I Crazy?

Perhaps this sounds familiar.

You hang up the phone and think:

"I’m pretty sure she just said that... That was actually quite hurtful."

Five minutes later:

"Or did I misunderstand?"

An hour later:

"Maybe I’m just too sensitive..."

Welcome to the kind of confusion that drains you emotionally and physically.

I know this feeling all too well.

After a difficult conversation, I could spend hours replaying it in my mind.

Maybe I had heard it wrong.

Maybe she didn't mean it that way.

Maybe I should just let it go.

Before I knew it, I wasn't thinking about what had actually happened anymore.

I was only wondering whether I was the problem.

The next day, I would sometimes apologize.

Or I would keep my discomfort to myself.

Not because I truly believed I was wrong, but because trusting my own feelings had once become unsafe.

Deep down, you know something isn't right.

But you've learned that staying true to yourself can come at a cost.

So you abandon yourself...

before anyone else even asks you to.

That isn't ignorance.

It's self-betrayal in the name of survival.

Chances are, you learned as a child to question your own reality.

To think your way to safety.

To check how everyone else was feeling before asking yourself how you felt.

If, as a child, you were often told that your feelings were wrong, that you were overreacting, or that something "wasn't meant that way," you slowly learned to stop trusting yourself.

Not because there was anything wrong with you, but because adapting felt safer than staying true to yourself.

Without realizing it, that pattern often follows you into your adult relationships.

Maybe you think you've lost your intuition.

But perhaps you haven't.

Perhaps your intuition has been whispering to you all along that something isn't right.

You've simply learned that listening to that voice isn't safe.

So you start analyzing.

Questioning.

Explaining.

Until, eventually, you convince yourself that it must all be your fault.

Maybe you're not crazy at all.

Maybe you learned to distrust yourself in order to survive.

❤️

Reflection

Did you learn to distrust yourself in order to survive?