The Quiet Violence of Staying Calm

The Quiet Violence of Staying Calm

When the Story Isn’t Yours

There are moments when survival looks like stillness. Like pretending your bones aren’t vibrating with the awareness that something is off. That someone—or maybe several someones—have chosen a story you didn’t write, and worse, expect you to act like it’s the truth. In their version, you’re smaller. More compliant. More willing to smile and nod while the ground shifts under you. They’ve assigned you lines you never auditioned for, emotions you don’t recognize, a role that requires you to forget everything you know about yourself.

If You Know, You Know

I don’t name names. Not because I’m afraid. Because I no longer feel the need to hand them the satisfaction of recognition. Names have power. They make things real in ways that serve no one, least of all me. If you know, you know. If you don’t? GREAT. Stay that way. It’s quieter here, in the space between knowing and naming.

The Strange Interim

Right now, I’m in the in-between. Between before and after. Between collapse and… whatever comes next. The “before” feels like a country I can no longer visit. Its borders closed, its language foreign. The “after” remains vast and unmapped. I walk toward it with no compass, only the stubborn belief that there must be something beyond this threshold. I’m not glowing with wisdom. I’m not gracefully wrapped in enlightenment. I’m just still here. Which, under these conditions, feels like a kind of mutiny.

I See the Theater

They want me to surrender. They need me to make myself smaller, to apologize for existing, to pretend their version of events is gospel. I’m supposed to perform forgiveness before I’ve even received an apology. Smile while they erase me. Forget myself so thoroughly that even I start to wonder if I ever existed. I want no part in their theater. The scenery is fake. The script is tired. The blocking is precise: who stands where, who gets to speak, who must remain silent. You could scream, and they’d call it bad manners. You could cry, and they’d call it manipulation. You could walk away, and they’d pretend they never noticed you were there.

Plastic Feelings, Expensive Denial

There are people I once trusted who’ve been swept up in something I can only describe as synthetic. Plastic feelings. Curated loyalties. Performative righteousness. I watch loyalty traded for luxury. Silence bought with shiny objects. Complicity disguised as love. As if enough square footage could house the truth they’re avoiding. As if a high thread count could cover what’s already rotting. The math doesn’t lie, no matter how many people pretend otherwise. I don’t hate them. Hate takes energy I no longer offer. But I won’t make excuses for them anymore. I won’t bend myself into a shape that makes their choices easier to live with.

You Can’t Build a Sanctuary on Denial

You can’t build a home on someone else’s denial. You can’t find peace in their carefully edited version of the past. Their foundation will always be unstable, the walls always see-through. So I stay calm—mostly. Not because I’m okay. Because I’m exhausted from teaching people how to care. The performance of stability has teeth. It’s how I keep mine sharp. Armor disguised as serenity. Strength masquerading as peace.

The Quiet Violence

This is the quiet violence of staying calm:

• To choose containment instead of combustion.
• To speak in code while your whole body hums with warning.
• To swallow words that could cut.
• To breathe through moments that demand screaming.

It’s standing steady while everything inside you wants to run. Calm isn’t always peace. It can also be a controlled burn. A daily decision to endure, not explode.

Art: Where the Mess Means Something

Art is the one place I get to lose it beautifully. Where my mess isn’t evidence of failure. Where broken pieces form new shapes. I cut things up and glue them down because I can’t always say it out loud. Not yet. Maybe never. The canvas doesn’t flinch when I bleed. The page doesn’t apologize for my frustration. Here, I get to be whole in my fragmentation.
Here, I get to be mine.

Time, and What I Can’t Get Back

There are small people I love more than myself. I won’t get this version of them again. These questions. These laughs. These unguarded moments of trust. To be at half-mast right now isn’t just unfortunate. It’s a travesty. So I hold myself together, not out of pride. But because the alternative is disappearing into their script. Becoming a ghost in someone else’s story.And I won’t.

I Refuse.

I refuse to become the supporting character in my own life. I refuse to apologize for surviving. I refuse to disappear. I refuse.