Ah yes, the classic “Why didn’t you just express your emotions more?” argument, brought to you by the same person who made damn sure that expressing your emotions would come at a cost.

And now here you are, doing mental gymnastics, wondering if maybe, just maybe, this whole thing was your fault. Maybe you were just too emotionally closed off. Maybe if you had just been different, things would’ve worked out.

Nah. Let’s cut through the noise. You weren’t silent, you were silenced.

The Eggshell Effect

You weren’t some cold, emotionless robot. You learned not to speak, because every time you did, it ended badly.

You probably started with good intentions. You had concerns, boundaries, or maybe just a normal reaction to something unhealthy. You thought, Hey, relationships are about communication, right?

Wrong.

The moment you tried to set a boundary, you were met with:

Anger
Victimhood
Dismissal
The Silent Treatment (ironic, isn’t it?)

And eventually, you learned. You learned that keeping the peace was safer than speaking your truth. That your feelings would always come second to theirs. That honesty was a luxury you couldn’t afford.

Then, after months (or years) of this, they turned around and hit you with:

"You never open up to me. You never express how you feel. Why don’t you let me in?"

Excuse me??

The Double Bind: Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t

• If you spoke up - You were dismissed, belittled, or made the villain.
• If you stayed quiet - You were “emotionally unavailable” and “cold.”

It wasn’t a relationship, it was a rigged game. And no matter what you did, you lost.

And now you’re sitting here, blaming yourself.

For what? For adapting? For protecting yourself? For recognizing, on some level, that honesty in that relationship came with consequences? Be more kind to yourself.

The Self-Gaslighting Spiral

Now comes the real tragedy, you’re so used to taking the blame that you don’t even realize you’re still doing it.

You weren’t allowed to express yourself. And yet, somehow, you’ve convinced yourself that your lack of expression was the problem.

That’s how deep it goes. That’s how much you’ve internalized this idea that you were the one who needed to be “better.”

So let me spell it out for you:

You were not the problem.
You were reacting normally to an abnormal situation.
You were walking on eggshells because that’s what survival required.

The Clarity You’ve Been Looking For

You didn’t have communication issues. You had a relationship where communication wasn’t safe.

You didn’t “ruin” anything by being emotionally guarded. You adapted to an environment that punished emotional honesty.

And the real mindfuck. The fact that you’re still questioning yourself, even now, proves how much power they had over your sense of self.

So here’s my final question to you:

Now that you’ve seen the truth, what are you going to do with it?

Because you can either keep blaming yourself for how you survived…
Or you can start healing, knowing that it was never your fault.

You keep digging even though you've hit the bottom. Your call. 💀