10/27/2026
For a long time, I thought healing meant becoming easier for other people to deal with.
Quieter. Less emotional. Less intense. Less awkward. Less needy. Less opinionated. Less me.
A lot of that started as survival.
If I could read the room well enough, maybe I could avoid conflict. If I could become what someone needed, maybe they would stay. If I could make myself smaller, maybe I would be safer.
The problem is, eventually you get so good at editing yourself that you forget what the unedited version looked like.
Healing has been a lot less about becoming a better version of myself and a lot more about becoming an honest one.
I am awkward sometimes. I am emotional. I think too much. I care deeply. I can be weird as hell. I can also be funny, thoughtful, curious, creative, and completely myself.
And I am learning that I do not need to shrink those parts just to make somebody else comfortable.
The people meant for me do not need a smaller version of me.
They need the real one.
And maybe I do too.
Matt 🤘
PTSD The War Within
Dirtborn
