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I didn’t just leave him.

I left the lies I told myself to stay.
I left the silence I kept to survive.
I left the girl who thought love was earned through pain.

Leaving a toxic relationship isn’t one brave decision—it’s a thousand terrifying micro-choices. It’s not just packing a bag. It’s untangling your soul from someone who made you mistake chaos for devotion.

This is the heartbreak no one talks about:

You can love someone—and still need to leave. You can burn for them—and still choose to rise.

I didn’t fall into one toxic relationship. I repeated them. Not because I was weak—but because I was trauma-bonded, raised in dysfunction, conditioned to endure.

Like many women, I believed if I could just be enough, stay calm enough, love hard enough—it would finally stop hurting.

But it didn’t.

The night I finally whispered, “I can’t live like this anymore,” I didn’t have a plan. Just a pulse, a prayer, and a pen.

I started writing the letters I never sent.
To him.
To my past self.
To the woman I hoped I could become.

And then, I started burning them.

One flame at a time, I shed the versions of me that were never mine to carry.

The Burning Problem

Emotional abuse doesn’t leave bruises—it leaves echoes.
It’s in the gaslighting.
The guilt trips.
The walking on eggshells.
The shaking that no one else sees.

The real captivity isn’t the relationship. It’s the silence.

We don’t just stay because we’re afraid of them. We stay because we’re afraid of who we’ll be without them.

The First Step Isn’t Leaving

The first step is remembering your own voice. And this is how you start:

1. Stop minimizing what happened.
2. Name the abuse—even if no one else validates it.
3. Build a safety plan (emotionally and logistically).
4. Anchor to one person, ritual, or practice that reminds you of your worth.
5. Write the letter you’re too afraid to say out loud.

Leaving is an act of rebellion. But healing? That’s an act of rebirth.

Burn the Letters

My book, Burnt Letters, isn’t a guide. It’s a reckoning.

It’s for the woman who still hears his voice in her head. The one who left, but still feels broken. The one rewriting her story from scratch.

It’s poetry, ritual, nervous system repair, flashbacks, journal entries, and hard-earned truths from a trauma-informed nurse who’s been through it.

It’s language for the pain you never knew how to name. And it will help you remember:

You are not crazy.
You are not alone.
You are not broken.
You are the author now.

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