It got to a point where what I thought no longer mattered It got to a point where what I thought no longer mattered. Every concern I raised was dismissed, every feeling I expressed was explained away, and every boundary I tried to set somehow became a problem. After a while, I stopped speaking up as much. Not because everything was okay, but because I became tired of fighting to have my perspective considered. The strange thing is, you don't notice yourself disappearing right away. It happens gradually. You start questioning your own judgment. You start shrinking your needs. You become more focused on keeping the peace than telling the truth about how something is affecting you. And before you know it, you've become a participant in your own silence. Looking back, I think one of the loneliest experiences is being in a situation where your voice exists, but your thoughts carry no weight. Where you're heard, but not considered. Seen, but not understood. And I learned something important from that: any connection that requires you to abandon your own reality to maintain it is costing you far more than it's giving you.