I don't remember the exact day it started.
There was no thunder, no dramatic moment, no clear breaking point.
Just a quiet feeling… like something inside me was slowly fading, and I didn't know how to stop it.
I used to be someone who laughed easily.
Someone who lived inside stories, who found comfort in fictional worlds when reality felt too loud. I loved watching anime late at night, getting lost in characters who felt more real than the people around me. I loved creating stories in my head — worlds where pain had meaning, where endings made sense.
But somewhere along the way, I stopped recognizing myself.
I entered a relationship without understanding what it truly meant. I thought love was supposed to fill the emptiness inside me. I thought if someone chose me, maybe I would finally feel whole. But instead of comfort, I felt pressure. Pressure to be perfect. Pressure to stay. Pressure to become someone I wasn't.
I smiled when I didn't want to.
I said "I'm fine" when I was breaking.
I forced myself to feel things I didn't feel.
And slowly, I started disappearing.
I stopped talking to people.
I stopped answering calls.
I stopped sharing my thoughts.
One by one, I deleted everything — my social media, my saved stories, the small things that once made me feel alive. It felt like erasing myself was easier than explaining what I was going through.
At night, I would lie awake, staring at the ceiling, wondering why my heart felt so heavy. I wasn't crying all the time… but I wasn't living either. It was a quiet kind of suffering — the kind that no one notices.
The worst part?
I blamed myself.
I told myself I was dramatic. Weak. Broken.
I thought, "Why can't I just be normal?"
But deep inside, a small part of me was still breathing. Still holding on. Even when I wanted to disappear, something inside me whispered, "Stay."
I didn't know it then, but that voice was me — the real me — waiting to be found again.
And that was the beginning of everything.
"Sometimes, the deepest pain is not screaming — it's the silence where you slowly lose yourself."