Jhoy

Episode 7: Resolution

I’ve spent six episodes leading you to this moment

I used to think resolution meant everything had to make sense
That healing would arrive as clarity
That one day I would wake up and the noise and heaviness inside me would be gone.

It didn’t happen that way😶

What came instead was something smaller, and harder to explain
A willingness to stay

This isn’t a happy ending
This is a funeral for the person I was before I spoke.

Finding your voice isn’t the happy ending I thought it would be
It doesn’t fix you
It doesn’t erase what you went through
It just means you are no longer hiding from it.

And that costs something.

To stay when the old urge to disappear comes back
To stay when my chest is heavy with things I still cannot name.
To stay even when I don’t feel brave, or hopeful, or strong. Only present

I learned that silence is not always peace
Sometimes it is fear wearing a quiet face
And speaking is not always loud
Sometimes it is just telling the truth to yourself when no one is listening.

So this is my resolution:

I do not promise happiness
I do not promise that the weight will never return
I do not promise that tomorrow will be easy

I only promise this;
That when the pause comes,
I will not run from it
I will breathe through it
I will let it pass through me instead of swallowing me whole.

And that is enough.

Not a perfect ending
Not a dramatic victory

Still here,
Still figuring it out..

Episode 6: BREAKING THE PAUSE

​I stayed silent so long that I forgot what my real voice sounded like.

It got to that point where silence started to overwhelm me.
Too many emotions, all bottled up.
I couldn’t fake pretending for long anymore.

Some days I just felt tired for no clear reason.
Not sleepy, just tired of carrying myself.

I had to run.
Because the mask was about to fall off, and pure sadness was ready to drip from my chest.

I couldn’t fake the emotions anymore.
Suicidal? NO, never.

But did I sometimes wish someone would hurt me, so at least I could say I didn’t end it myself?
Yes, many times.
​Still, I knew I’d be cheating myself.
There was a strange burden to give myself another chance to live each day.

Now I had only one option:
Speak up.

Not speaking was no longer an option.
I had already lost everything
myself, my real emotions,
forgotten what my real voice even sounded like.
NO hobbies. NO favourites.
Just bland.

​I remember sitting there once, everyone waiting for me to talk.
My mouth was open, but nothing came out.
My chest felt tight and empty at the same time.

What’s the worst that could happen?
Maybe I’d be laughed at.
Maybe hated.

But this is how people become great, I told myself.

​Did I speak immediately after that decision?
NO. Never.

It took separating plasma from my blood and separating serum from my plasma.

I shrank every time I tried.
"What if" became my favourite excuse.

You’d think I finally tried and felt amazing🤣😂.
NO, baby. I didn’t.

​But life kept putting me in places where silence no longer had a passkey.

I’d mutter a few words.
Serious words.
But you could tell the insecurity in them.
The lack of coordination.

Imagine ending a conversation just by starting it.
Then starting it again at the point it should have ended.

Now I can’t even end conversations, not because I love talking, but because I have too much bottled inside.
Too many emotions.
Too many ideas I kept for years.

​Everyone can tell I’m saying something important, but they still can’t fully get it.
They’d be lying if they said they did.

Even I don’t know how to say it properly.
I never learned how to arrange my thoughts into words.

The struggle.
The sadness.
The heaviness.

​But I felt good that I talked.
So I started looking for people to talk to.
Rehearsing with their time.
Not everyone has time for me,
but I was happy.

I spoke.
Even if it was rubbish.

And for the first time in a long while, that felt like enough.

BEFORE I HAD A VOICE
Episode 5: The Weight of the Unsaid

Silence was supposed to save me.
Or at least that’s what I believed.

But no, silence doesn’t save you.
It turns you into a container
and throws everything inside you.

There are things I never said,
not because I didn’t want to,
but because I was scared of what it would cost me: the shame, the truth, the scolding.
I buried them so deep
that even I forget what they sound like.
Now I carry a voice
that only exists in my head.

The weight of the unsaid is dramatic.
It is crying every day over things you can’t explain.😭😭
It is sadness that never leaves.
It is mixed emotions tearing you apart
until you don’t know what you feel anymore.

It feels like choking on your own words.
Like drowning in memories that never happened,
Conversations that never took place,
A life trapped inside your chest.

I think about all the moments I needed to speak
and chose silence instead.
Not because I was strong
because I was afraid.

The fear never really left.
It just hides behind the silence,
patient and waiting,
A shadow that sits with you even when the world thinks you are fine.

And it has weight.
Not the kind you can carry.

The kind that breaks you slowly,
that teaches you to disappear while still breathing.

I am bleeding out the years I spent being still.
All the time I survived instead of lived.
All the words I never dared to speak.

Silence didn’t save me.
It trapped me.
It reshaped me.
It taught me what it really means
to be unseen,
unheard, and buried alive in your own chest.

Episode 4: Laughter in the Shadows

​I laughed a lot back then. Not because I was happy, but because laughter was safer than explaining.

​I laughed in moments of embarrassment.
The kind where your chest tightens and you don’t know where to put your eyes.

I laughed when words failed me
when my mouth tried to speak but my thoughts scattered before they could land.
When I knew what I felt, but language refused to cooperate.

​So I laughed.

​Because laughter filled the gap where honesty couldn’t pass through.
I laughed to make things less awkward
I laughed to keep people comfortable.
I laughed to avoid the follow-up questions.

I didn’t have answers anyway.
Why was I always laughing when I wasn't okay?
Why did joy become my cover?
Why did my pain always wear a smile?

​I learned early that if I laughed first, no one would ask what was wrong.
If I stayed loud, no one would listen closely.
If I smiled, no one would look too long.

​That laughter was not joy.
It was armor.
It was survival.
It was how I stayed standing before I was strong enough to speak.

And sometimes, I still laugh—even now.

​Before I had a voice, this was how I stayed in plain sight.

​This piece is for the underneath.
It isn't polished; that would be a lie.
It’s just stories and truth, straight from the heart.

​If this is you,
if you are hiding too, you can leave a “me too."
Or just let it sit with you.
Either way, you’re seen.

Pull up a chair. We’re talking for real.

​

BEFORE I HAD A VOICE
Episode 3: Whispers I Kept.

​Some truths begin as whispers.
​I kept mine not because I wanted to, but because I was taught to.
I swallowed it daily until it burned my chest and settled into my bones.

​I laughed when I wanted to scream.
I agreed when everything in me said no.
I mastered pretending,
because silence felt like survival.

​But silence is not peace
it is weight.
It is exhaustion.
It is losing yourself slowly while everyone else thinks you are fine.

​I carried that whisper for years,
letting it hurt me in places no one could see.
I kept the whisper for a long time.
​Now, I choose my voice. 🗣️

Anyone still there, Still quiet,
Still carrying,
Still waiting.
You're not alone❤️

When you're ready or even before you are,
Whisper, Write, Weep.
But dont disappear.

​

Before I was Heard
Episode 2: When silence was safer

​There were years when silence wasn’t just an absence
it was a shield. Silence protected me. Or at least, that’s what I told myself.

​I wasn’t quiet in the way people expect.
I spoke. I reacted. I pushed back.
And because of that, people called me stubborn.
They thought I could handle anything. Like I was built for whatever came my way.
​So they gave me everything.
Every burden, every expectation, every role they didn’t want to carry themselves.

​But deep down,
I was shy. Timid, easily shaken.
A child with a storm in her chest, learning to smile through the thunder.
​I wasn’t quiet. I was misunderstood. I stayed silent in the moments that mattered
not because I had nothing to say, but because no one was really listening.

​I swallowed every scream I wanted to let out.
Every "I need help."
Every "I don't understand."
Every "Please see me."
​And the more I buried, the more people assumed I was fine. But I wasn’t fine.💔

​I was good at pretending.
Good at laughing when I wanted to cry.
Good at looking strong when all I really wanted was to feel safe enough to be soft.
Because every time I showed my real emotions, I was told I was too sensitive,
too dramatic, too much.
​So I stopped showing them.

​Silence wasn’t peace.
It was armor.
It was survival.

It was the only thing that didn’t get picked apart or punished.
And when you live like that long enough, you start to forget what your voice even sounds like.
You start to wonder if your feelings matter.
If you matter.

​That’s the cost of silence.
It chips away at you quietly.
It hollows you out.
​Until one day, you look in the mirror and don’t recognize the version of you that’s been pretending for so long.

There were nights I wanted to scream,
just scream to remind myself I was still alive. But I didn’t. I couldn’t.
I just kept nodding, smiling, shrinking.

​I made myself small to make others comfortable.
I became who they needed me to be at the cost of who I actually was.

​But, I’m done doing that.✨️

​I’m not here to perform strength anymore.
I’m here to speak, even when my voice trembles.
To feel, even when it’s messy.
To be seen, even if it makes people uncomfortable.

​Because my silence protected everyone but me.

​Now, I speak not because I have it all figured out.
But because I’m tired of disappearing.
Because I know what it’s like to be the strong one who’s secretly breaking.
Because I know what it’s like to hold space for others and still feel invisible.

​This space isn’t perfect.
It’s not polished or curated.
But it’s honest.
It’s mine. And maybe, just maybe, it can be yours too.

​For anyone who’s ever been overlooked, mislabeled, or expected to carry too much,
I see you.
I am you.
And you don’t have to be silent anymore.

Before I Had a Voice
Episode 1: Heart Seat Talk

I've always needed someone to talk to, so now I talk. I grew up needing someone to talk to, like really talk to. But I learned early that the world doesn't always give you that, not where I come from.

So I got quiet. I swallowed things whole: pain, questions, fears. I wore a strong face like a school uniform every day, even when I was breaking.

I used to look at the ceiling like it owed me answers. I didn't cry out loud; crying wasn't safe.

So I grew up fast, too fast. I started raising my own emotions like they were little siblings and learned to tuck my pain into quiet smiles.

Truth is, I've been a listener. People talk to me because they feel safe, like I won't judge, and I won't.

But for years, I kept thinking: When's my turn?

Now I'm learning to give myself permission to speak, to feel, to say "I'm not okay" without performance

This Space is me finally peeling back the years of silence
Its not polished, its not perfect
Its just mine...
And maybe,it can be yours too

So if you're reading this, and you've ever felt like your voice didn't matter
Just know, I see you
This is our Heart Seat

Let's talk