How I Released What I Held On To

I believed that if I gave enough, waited long enough, and bent myself into the right shape, my partner and I would eventually step into the future I dreamed of. In my mind, we would heal, grow, and finally become the couple I had imagined. I edited the story in my head a hundred times, always finding a way to make it work on paper, even when it didn’t work in real life.

But here’s the truth: I wasn’t loving the person in front of me. I was loving the character I had created for them — the one who existed in the margins of “if only” and “someday.”

Silence as a Lie

Adrienne Rich once wrote: “Lying is done with words, and also with silence.” That line stayed with me. Because I realized I had been lying to myself with silence. I didn’t want to face the truth that the story I was clinging to wasn’t true. Silence let me keep living in the fantasy, even as reality chipped away at me.

The Breaking Point

The moment of clarity came slowly, then all at once. I realized I was carrying the entire relationship — writing both sides of the dialogue, directing every scene, and waiting for a breakthrough that never arrived. Once I saw that clearly, I couldn’t unsee it. And in that clarity, I felt both devastation and relief.

Why This Site Exists

Heal Not Deal was born from that moment of release. From the pain of laying down a story that had carried me for too long — but also from the hope that comes when you start to write a new one. This space is my way of honoring what I learned: that release isn’t failure, that boundaries are acts of love, and that rediscovery is always possible.

✨ Takeaway: When the story you’ve been telling yourself no longer matches reality, you are allowed to stop writing it. You deserve to write one where you are not just a character in someone else’s script — you are the author.