The first time didn't feel like destruction.That's the lie no one talks about.
It felt like relief.
Not happiness—never that—but a silence so sudden it was convincing. The noise in my head dulled, the panic loosened its grip, and for a brief moment I could breathe without feeling like my lungs were collapsing inward. I remember thinking, This must be what peace feels like.
It wasn't loud. It didn't arrive with chaos or flashing lights or alarms screaming in my chest. It arrived quietly, politely even, as if it understood me better than anyone ever had.
That should have scared me.
I told myself it was controlled. That I was aware. That I wasn't like them—the ones you hear about, the ones who lose everything. I had rules. Limits. A line I promised myself I would never cross.
It smiled at that.
It always does.
Because it doesn't need you to fall immediately. It just needs you to come back.
The second time felt earned.The third felt necessary.By the fourth, I wasn't asking if I would use it again—I was asking when.
I didn't notice when my thoughts began orbiting around it. How everything I did had a quiet calculation behind it. How time stretched painfully thin between moments of relief. How my body started recognizing the absence before my mind did.
I told myself I was still present. Still a parent. Still a person with control.
But control doesn't announce when it leaves.
It slips out the back door while you're convincing yourself you're fine.
I started sleeping less. Eating became optional. My patience wore thin, my joy thinner. The mirror began reflecting someone I didn't recognize, but I avoided it—because mirrors are honest, and honesty felt dangerous.
And then came the guilt.
Not enough to stop—but enough to rot something deep inside me. It whispered that I was weak. That I was failing. That this was proof I wasn't good enough to handle life the way others could.
So I leaned harder into the one thing that didn't judge me.
Or so I thought.
Because it doesn't yell. It doesn't threaten. It doesn't force.
It waits.
It waits for exhaustion.For fear.For isolation.
And when it has those, it tightens its grip—not violently, not all at once—but just enough that you don't realize you're suffocating until breathing feels optional.
I still believed I could walk away.
I didn't know that belief was already borrowed time.