There are nights

when I feel like a serial killer

and the only body I keep dragging across the floor is my own.

I have murdered so many versions of myself

trying to become easier to love.

The first one I buried

was the girl who knew how to be angry.

I replaced her with someone gentle,

someone patient, someone who could swallow hurt without letting it stain her voice.

Even when my chest was collapsing inward,

I learned to say

“It’s okay.”

Like a prayer.

Like a survival tactic.

Like self-harm disguised as maturity.

Then I killed the version of me

that wanted to be chosen loudly.

Neediness was embarrassing, wasn’t it?

Too much emotion scares people away.

So I shrank.

Made myself quieter. Softer. Easier.

Small enough to fit inside other people’s comfort

without disturbing the furniture.

And God,

the amount of shapes I folded myself into

just to keep people from leaving.

I gave softness to people

who handed me cruelty without trembling.

I answered wounds with understanding.

I kept translating my pain

into something digestible for others.

As if love was a language

I had to earn fluency in.

As if my suffering only mattered

once I made it beautiful enough

for someone else to tolerate.

So every time someone disliked me,

I dissected myself for answers.

Maybe I’m too emotional.

Cut that part out......

Maybe I’m too intense.

Maybe I care too much.

Maybe I speak too softly.

Maybe I speak too loudly.

Maybe I am too alive

for people who only know how to love in half-measures.

And somewhere along the way,

I stopped knowing which parts of me were real and which parts were just survival strategies wearing my face.

Sometimes I think

I became so easy to abandon

because I spent my entire life

practicing how to disappear.

That’s the horror of it....

Not that people hurt me.

But that I became complicit in my own erasure.

Every time someone implied

I would be easier to love

if I was less angry,

less sensitive,

less complicated, less human....

I obeyed……

I carved tenderness into my bones until they broke under the weight of it.

I stitched apologies into my tongue.

I turned myself into something consumable.

Something harmless.

Something that would never ask for too much.

And still..

still...

It was never enough.

There was always another flaw to amputate.

Another version of myself to bury alive.

Until I realized…. I was standing in a graveyard filled entirely with people

I used to be.

And every single corpse looked back at me

like it was still waiting to be loved.

That’s what destroys me most....

I killed every version of myself trying to become worthy of staying for….. only to discover that the people I was dying for never once asked me to survive.

I grew up in a house where love had rules
before it had names.
Where prayers were louder than questions,
and silence was the safest answer
when anything felt too different to explain.

They hated the idea of girls loving girls
like it was something unholy you could catch
just by thinking about it too long.

And I believed them.

I really did.

So I learned how to look away from myself.

I learned how to fold my feelings
into something smaller, quieter, safer,
something that wouldn’t look like sin
even in my own thoughts.

I asked God early,
the way children ask about weather they’re afraid of..
soft, careful, rehearsed:

Is this wrong?

And I remember being scared of the answer
before it even came.

When I was younger, I used to wonder
why other girls dreamed of princes, castles, endings written for them.

Because I didn’t.

I looked at princesses
not the way you admire something far away,
but the way you look at something you wish you could stand beside
without being told it’s impossible.

Not to become them,
but to be close enough
that the distance stops hurting.

But I hid that thought too.
Like it was something dangerous
to want softness in a direction I wasn’t allowed to name.

Then I reached Grade 7
and something in me stopped pretending.

It didn’t arrive loudly.
It just… stayed.

A feeling I could no longer pray away
no matter how carefully I folded my hands.

And I asked God again...
over and over, in different versions of fear:

Is this a sin?
Is this where I am punished?
Is this what I am meant to deny to be loved by You?

So I tried to change myself.

I tried to like boys the way I was supposed to.
I tried to make my heart obey like the rest of me did.

But it felt like wearing something that was never measured for me,
tight in places I couldn’t explain,
loose in places that should have mattered.

And still...
even in all that effort...

I liked a girl.

Not as a rebellion.
Not as a choice.

But as something honest enough
to survive everything I tried to erase it with.

And that is where everything began to fracture.

Because if this was wrong,
why did it feel like breathing?

Why did it feel like finally exhaling
after years of holding something in my chest
just to stay acceptable?

Why did loving her feel less like falling…
and more like arriving?

So I stopped asking only if it was allowed.

I started asking why what feels like peace
has to be called punishment
just because it doesn’t look like what I was taught.

And I started wondering...

if God created everything,
then maybe even this was not an accident of me.

Maybe it was not something I became.
Maybe it was something that was always there
waiting for me to stop being afraid of it.

So if this is what they call sin,
then I will carry it honestly.

Not because I want to be away from God,
but because I cannot call something wrong
just because it is the first time I have ever felt fully alive inside it.

And if I am wrong,
then let it be known:

I did not choose her over faith.

I only finally stopped choosing fear over truth.

Because if love is only holy
when it fits inside what others can accept,
then I don’t think I understand holiness the way I was taught.

And if I was made by something divine,
then maybe even this part of me
was never meant to be erased...only understood.

They asked me,
“What do you want to become?”

I almost answered,
“Someone who no longer flinches
when people raise their voice.”

But instead, I said something acceptable.
Something polished.
Something that wouldn’t make the room uncomfortable.

That’s the first thing you learn in psychology

People only want honesty
until it starts sounding like trauma.
So I studied the human mind.
Not to understand others,
but to investigate
why I survived things that should have ruined me completely.

Why do I apologize..... like breathing.
Why does love feel safest when it’s distant?
Why I can explain attachment theory
better than I can explain why abandonment still feels like a death sentence.

Maybe Freud would search my childhood.
Maybe Skinner would blame reinforcement.
Maybe Beck would call it distorted thinking.

But no textbook has ever fully explained
why some people become experts
at hiding pain while simultaneously begging to be noticed.

You want to know what psychology feels like to me?
It feels like staring into a mirror and realizing you can identify every symptom except your own.

I can recognize anxiety
in trembling hands.
Depression,
in prolonged silence.
Trauma,
in hyper-independence.

But when it comes to myself,
I call it “being dramatic.”
“Being sensitive.”
“Just tired.”

Isn’t it terrifying how the mind can normalize suffering?
How a person can become so accustomed to emotional neglect that bare minimum affection starts feeling like love?

I have spent years turning my pain into humor, my breakdowns into productivity,
my loneliness into academic validation.

Because if I excel enough, achieve enough, become useful enough, maybe people will finally stay.

Psychology says
childhood experiences shape the self.

Then.....

Why do some children grow up believing their existence must be earned?
Why do some of us measure our worth
through performance,
through sacrifice,
through how little space we take up in a room?

I became the listener
because nobody listened to me.
The “strong friend” because collapsing was never an option.
The understanding one, because I knew how painful it was to not be understood at all.

And maybe that’s why the scariest people are not the loud ones. It’s the people who have mastered the art of looking okay.

The ones who answer
“I’m fine” with frightening precision.
The ones who laugh at the right moments, give advice to everyone else,
then go home and stare at the ceiling like they are trying to survive their own thoughts.

You know what nobody tells you
about the human mind?

It remembers everything.
Every humiliation.
Every abandonment.
Every version of you that was loved less for being too emotional,
too much,
too sensitive,
too hard to hold.

The body keeps score,
but the mind?
The mind keeps evidence.
And some nights,
it presents them all at once.

So yes,
I studied psychology.
Because I needed to know why people can spend their entire lives
desperately wanting to be loved, yet destroy themselves the moment love finally arrives.

Maybe that is the tragedy of being human
We are terrified of being abandoned,
but we are equally terrified of being truly seen.

And sometimes,
the saddest case study is the person
analyzing everyone else just to avoid confronting
the fact that they are slowly disappearing too.

This particular kind of loneliness that comes from being mediocre.

Not terrible, not exceptional either. Just..... somewhere in between.

And in that space, I have always lived there.... Always been there, not in the left side, nor the right side, but in the middle where everything seems mediocre, not the best, but also not the worst.

I was never the worst in class but wasn't the best as well. Not the one teachers worry about, but never the one they brag about. Not the person people underestimate, but never the one they expect greatness from either. I am the safe choice. The predictable outcome. The almost.

And sometimes it feels heavier than failure.

Because when you fail, at least it's clear. There are obvious things to fix, something visible to fight against, something that you can still figure out how to be better. But when you're average, what do you actually battle?? How would you fight for it? You bring all the bullets, all the powerful guns, and all the swords in the battlefield but still, it wasn't enough. It's like giving your ultimate best, studying late at night, doing everything you could just to get the grade that you've always wanted, you practiced, and you tried so hard. But still, you end up right in the middle, swallowed by the crowd.

“You are good,” they say.
But never, “You are extraordinary.”

There's a quiet ache seeing other people soar, spread their wings, and achieve everything like it's nothing. Those talented people..... the gifted ones, and those who carried brilliance like it's stitched into their skin. They just move with certainty.... shine without even trying like it's the easiest thing to achieve. Meanwhile, I try, and try, and try, and tried so hard..... and still, land softly in the ordinary place.

It makes you question yourself.

Was I not disciplined enough?
Not passionate enough?
Not destined enough?

Or maybe this is just who I am.

Mediocrity is strange because it doesn’t come with drama. It doesn’t come with applause either. It is the long hallway between two doors that never fully open. It is being told,

“You have potential,” but never being the proof of it.

I am always almost there, but never quite......

There's something heartbreaking about giving everything you ahve and realizing that everything you have is simply..... average.

You watch people surpass expectations effortlessly while you struggle just to meet them. You carry hope like a fragile glass, careful not to drop it, because deep down you are terrified that this.... this middle ground, is permanent.

And yet, you keep trying.

That might be the saddest part of all.

You wake up and try again. You pour yourself into work, into art, into love, into dreams. You stretch your limits. You exhaust your spirit. And when the results come, they are decent. Fine. Acceptable.

But never remarkable.

Some people are born with fire.
Some of us are born with smoke.

Still, even in the quiet sorrow of being average, there is a stubborn kind of courage. It takes strength to continue when you are not fueled by praise. It takes resilience to show up when you are not naturally gifted. It takes heart to keep building something that may never be extraordinary.

Maybe being in the middle is not a failure.
Maybe it is just a different kind of existence.

A quieter one.
A softer one.
A heavier one.

And maybe one day, we will learn that worth was never measured by brilliance. That value was never reserved for the exceptional. That being “enough” was never about surpassing anyone.

But until that day comes, I will sit here, in the middle... holding both grief and hope in the same trembling hands.

Because even if I am not extraordinary,
I am still trying.

And sometimes, trying is the most honest thing a person can be.

The weight of being in the middle.