(And Didn’t)
2025 The Year That Should Have Broken Me (And Didn’t)
I’m not writing this to be brave.
I’m writing it because the year ends in few hours — and I refuse to carry it silently into the next one.
2025 year tried to break me.
It attempted a slow assassination of my life — in my body, my nervous system, my faith in systems that were meant to protect me.
It was also the year I turned forty.
Alone.
Not in a poetic, cinematic way.
Not in a “this will make sense later” way.
In the slow, grinding way that dismantles people quietly.
In the way that doesn’t look dramatic from the outside but erodes you from the inside — body, nervous system, trust, hope.
I survived this year alone.
Not independent.
Not taking space.
Not finding myself.
Actual solitude.
The kind where days pass without meaningful human contact.
The kind where no one is checking in.
The kind where you are your own witness, your own advocate, your own anchor.
Even monks have more contact with other humans than I did.
There were no crowds.
No soft landings.
No one stepping in when things tipped from hard into unbearable.
Just me.
Showing up.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Most people would not have survived a year like this.
Not because they’re weak — but because they’ve never had to be this strong.
They’ve never had to fight systems while in pain.
They’ve never had to explain their reality to people determined not to hear it.
They’ve never had to grieve parts of their life while still waking up and continuing.
This year taught me things I didn’t ask to learn — but now that I know them, I can’t unknow them.
I learned that resilience doesn’t look like motivation.
It looks like staying.
It looks like getting through days that required everything I had — without applause, reassurance, or relief.
I learned that “high functioning” is not a compliment.
It’s often a trauma response dressed up as capability.
I learned that rest is not laziness.
That boundaries are not cruelty.
That needing help is not failure — it’s discernment.
And I learned that my body is not broken.
It has been protecting me in ways medicine and systems don’t always understand.
This year stripped me.
Layer by layer.
Person by person.
Illusion by illusion.
I shed people I thought would be in my life forever.
I shed family dynamics that required me to disappear to keep the peace.
I shed the version of myself that survived by pleasing, managing, softening, and over-explaining.
There was grief in that.
There was rage in that.
And there was relief.
Because I didn’t lose people this year —
I outgrew dynamics that required self-abandonment in exchange for proximity.
I stopped performing strength so others wouldn’t feel uncomfortable around my pain.
I stopped shrinking to stay included.
I stopped carrying responsibility for everyone else’s emotional regulation.
This year cured me of people-pleasing.
Not because I became colder — but because I became clearer.
When the clock strikes midnight, I am still the only person who has consistently been there for me.
And that has to count for something.
This year, I finally did the thing I’ve been carrying for years.
I wrote the book.
Not as a cute creative goal.
Not as a “someday.”
But as a reckoning.
Writing it wasn’t the hardest part.
Finishing it was.
And then came the realisation — the part no one warns you about:
The hardest part is still ahead.
Being seen.
Letting the work exist in the world without trying to control how it’s received.
Letting people read your truth without cushioning it for their comfort.
Letting yourself take up space without offering an explanation.
Surviving quietly is a of strength no one talks about.
Standing openly — without apology, without self-betrayal — is another.
I’ve spent years being visible for other people.
Supporting them.
Holding space.
Making sure they were okay.
Now I’m learning how to be visible for myself.
And I’m learning something else too:
Access to my life is no longer automatic.
Grace is not the same thing as access.
Kindness is not an invitation.
History is not a free pass.
If you want a place in my life, you will have to meet me where I am; regulated, boundaried, honest, no longer masking or willing to disappear to keep the peace.
People don’t get front-row seats just because they ask.
They don’t get intimacy because they’re familiar.
They don’t get to stay because I’m kind.
This isn’t bitterness.
It’s discernment earned the hard way.
I know what it costs me to over-extend.
I know what it takes to rebuild myself after being misunderstood.
And I know I will never again abandon myself to make someone else more comfortable.
When this year ends, I won’t be celebrating what I gained.
I’ll be honoring what I survived.
What I released.
And what I finally chose.
I survived a year that should have broken me —
alone, unseen, and still standing.
And if you did too — quietly, imperfectly, stubbornly — I see you.
We’re still here.
And that matters more than anyone ever taught us.
Imagine if medical school took twenty-six years, and at the end of it, you still weren’t believed.
That has been my reality.
Fighting to be heard by hospitals, doctors, specialists, friends, and family — over and over again — until exhaustion became the baseline.
I’m done.
The only person who needs to believe me now is me.
This year — the year of the snake — taught me something brutal and sacred:
No one will ever be there for you the way you are there for yourself.
And if you leave your survival in the hands of others, you will not survive.
So here’s to saying goodbye to a year that many of us escaped with the skin of our teeth.
And here’s to 2026 —
not as a resolution,
not as a performance,
but as a rebirth.
Happy New Year
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