Ignoring me is the fastest way to make me distance myself. Not because I’m sensitive (which I am) but because I’ve already lived a lifetime in silence. Your silence already gives me the answers I need. It shows me where I stand and how much I matter to you.

Once upon a time, I used to perform to earn love. But I didn’t survive a lifetime of silently drowning, just so I could relive that pain again for you.

I don’t chase people who make me feel invisible.

I won’t continue to hold on to someone determined to keep pushing me away. Now, when I’m ignored, I slowly retreat. That’s how I protect my peace. I won’t explain why, because I won’t give you something that you can’t offer me.

That’s self-respect.

That’s knowing my worth and what I deserve. I don’t take it personal if that bar’s too high for you to reach.

Ignoring me tells me more about what’s important to you than it does about the importance of me.

A simple message can mean a lot. 2 seconds of your time, maybe 3, tells me that I have a place in your mind. I no longer write books explaining my thoughts.

I’ve stopped begging, hoping, praying… Holding my breath while waiting for your response.

The fact that I once did, and don’t anymore, should tell you something too. It should speak mountains to you… about the love you once had, and the status you lost.

That void. That empty hollow space that now exists in your life where my love once lived.

That loneliness you can’t quite name, no matter how many women you entertain. That’s a hole you made.

While you were giving them your energy and all the pieces of you I wanted, I was putting my energy into picking up all the pieces of me you discarded. I was building the strength to walk away.

I’m sure at the time you thought it was a good thing to do. I’m sure it made sense since I was a thousand miles away. What harm could come from sampling a few? Who knows… Maybe you’d find someone you like more. Someone better than me.

Then, instead of texting me back, you left me on read. You spent your time creating dating profiles, and scrolling through all the beautiful faces of all your options instead.

You were betting I wouldn’t find out. But I did.

You thought I’d never know. But I knew.

None of those women seem to fit quite right in that hole you created, do they?

Do you know why? It’s simple really.

It all boils down to one simple thing. Something you got wrong from the beginning. Something you doubted, or maybe never believed to be true.

The one difference between me and all those other women…

I truly loved you.

I wasn’t merely just attracted to you. It wasn’t only lust that I felt. It wasn’t charisma, personality, your body, or anything superficial.

It was the depth you awakened in me. It was the way you did it with ease. There was a connection to you that I felt soul deep.

It was the darkness you pulled into the light. It was the way our demons danced through the night.

It was the way you responded when our safe word was spoken. You made me feel safe, for the first time in my life.

You were the only one that ever made me feel that way. But one lesson I learned through all this is… Just because I feel something doesn’t make it true.

Can you see all the irony here?

The very thing that made me love you was the very thing you couldn’t embrace.

The same depth I’ve spent a lifetime searching for, you’ve been running from your whole life.

While been praying for someone to finally see every part of me. You’ve been hiding parts you pray no body will ever see.

I saw you. Every part of you. Even the ones you tried to hide. The ones that live in your pain, fear, and shame. I saw every part of you, and I loved every piece.

It was the depth that made me feel safe. That very depth is what made you pull away.

But my safe place lives in the deep, and as the depth departed, all the safety left too.

That’s why I’ve spent years chasing you. Driving myself crazy trying to figure out how to convince you. Because that depth was bliss for me.

But I’ve learned a valuable lesson in all of this. And ignoring me was exactly what I needed to learn it.

You have no intention of returning to the depths we once shared. You don’t create distance unless space is what you need.

I know, because it’s not just something I want. It’s something I need.

This was written for release. Not to wound the man who ignore me. Not to persuade him. But to finally tell the truth without needing a response.

What stands out most isn’t the anger. It’s the clarity.

This isn’t a letter written from collapse. It’s written from the moment after collapse, when the nervous system finally stops scanning for crumbs and says,

“I’ve already learned what silence means.”

A few things I want to reflect on. Cleanly, without romanticizing the pain:

1. I named the core wound without handing him responsibility for it.

“I’ve already lived a lifetime in silence.”

That line matters. I’m not saying, “You’re hurting me.”

I’m saying,

“This pain predates you, and I refuse to reenact it.”

That’s a nervous system boundary, not an emotional ultimatum.

As a survivor of incest abuse, I don’t fear conflict the most. I fear non-response. Silence was where danger lived. Silence was where my needs died. Silence was where my body learned to disappear.

Ignoring me didn’t just feel rude. It activates a memory my body survived once already.

Instead of fawning, performing, or over-explaining this time. I withdrew.

That’s not sensitivity. It’s not vindictive. It’s integration.

2. I named the illusion without shaming myself for believing it.

“Just because I feel something doesn’t make it true.”

This is a brutal and sacred realization.

Trauma bonds often form not because the connection is mutual, but because the depth is familiar. Intensity can feel like intimacy with a nervous system that was wired in chaos. Safety can feel boring. Distance can feel like abandonment even when it’s simply incompatibility.

I didn’t shame myself for loving him. I corrected the conclusion I once drew from that love.

That’s how healing actually looks. Not by erasing the feeling, but updating the meaning.

3. I stopped confusing depth with capacity.

This may be the most important pivot in the entire piece.

I saw him. I loved him. I accessed something real in myself through the connection.

But loving depth doesn’t mean the other person can live there.

Some people visit the depths like tourists.

They marvel. They feel alive. Then they leave.

Others, like me, built their home there because survival demanded it.

That mismatch hurts like hell, but it isn’t a failure of love.

It’s a difference in tolerance for self-contact.

People who haven’t made peace with their own shame can’t stay present with someone who has.

4. The chase ended the moment I stopped narrating my worth.

“I no longer write books explaining my thoughts.”

That sentence tells me everything.

Unresolved trauma conditions us to believe that if we can just explain ourselves better, love will stabilize. But regulation doesn’t come from eloquence. It comes from reciprocity.

Two seconds of response isn’t about time. It’s about availability.

I didn’t withdraw to punish him. I withdrew because my body finally trusted itself enough to leave unanswered questions unanswered.

5. This wasn’t written to be sent, and that’s why it worked

If I had written this hoping he’d finally understand, it would still be a plea.

But this wasn’t a plea. It was a reckoning.

I wasn’t asking him to come back to the depth. I was acknowledging he already chose not to.

That’s grief with dignity.

And here’s the part I want to say gently but firmly:

The “hole” I describe isn’t proof of my irreplaceability. It’s proof that unintegrated people keep recreating absence wherever they go.

I didn’t leave a void because I’m the only woman capable of loving him. I left a void because I stopped carrying the emotional labor he outsourced to me.

That’s not loss. That’s consequence.

Final truth, from one survivor to another:

I don’t need him to read this.

I needed my body to hear that silence no longer gets to define my value, my patience, or my love.

And it did.

That’s why this feels complete.

Not because it’s finally over, but because I’m no longer waiting.

Older Sister is a concept created to teach myself more self compassion. She is an imaginary version of myself, 30 years in the future. She’s done all the work. She’s learned valuable lesson’s through the years and all the pain and healing she’s lived through. 

She doesn’t rush. She sits down beside me, lets the quiet settle, and then speaks. Not to or about anyone else, but to me.

Little one,

I remember this moment. Not because it broke me, but because it’s where I finally stopped breaking myself for someone else.

I did something different this time. I didn’t argue with silence. I didn’t perform CPR on a dead connection. I didn’t confuse longing with destiny.

I listened. To myself. To my body. To my soul.

And I know how hard that was, because silence used to mean danger. It used to mean I was forgotten, disposable, not worth the effort of words. My body learned that lesson young, and it etched it deep. Into my muscles, my breath, my sleep, my immune system. That’s why my nervous system used to chase resolution like my life depended on it. Unresolved trauma doesn’t just live in the mind. It lives in inflammation, in cortisol loops, in a heart that never quite rests.

But look at me now.

This time, when silence showed up, I didn’t collapse inward. I didn’t shrink. I didn’t beg the universe for crumbs of reassurance.

I withdrew my energy.

That’s not avoidance. That’s discernment.

I’m finally fluent in the language of capacity. I understand something now that once took me decades to learn:

Depth is not the same thing as availability.

Chemistry is not commitment.

Safety felt real because I was real.

The connection awakened something true in me, but that doesn’t obligate me to stay where truth cannot live.

I didn’t imagine the intimacy. I didn’t hallucinate the safety I felt in those moments.

But I also didn’t cause his retreat.

Some people touch the depths and feel terror. Not because the depths are wrong, but because they expose everything they’ve spent a lifetime hiding from themselves. Shame hates witnesses.

But me… I see too clearly.

I know I once believed that if someone could just see all of me, they’d stay. That belief made sense. It was born in a house where being unseen was how I survived. But love isn’t secured by visibility alone. It’s secured by willingness, and that can’t be negotiated.

Here’s the truth I want to carry forward, because I promise, I’ve lived long enough to see it proven again and again:

I was never chasing him. I was chasing the feeling of being met.

And now, I know how to meet myself.

That’s why the chase ended. Not because I hardened, but because my nervous system finally learned that peace is more important than intensity. Chronic longing is exhausting. It wrecks the body. It keeps the soul in a constant state of sympathetic arousal. Always waiting, always bracing. And I don’t live there anymore.

I don’t need to convince anyone to come into the deep with me. The ones who belong there will already be swimming.

So when I look at this letter, I don’t see it as unfinished business. I see it as evidence. Evidence that I no longer confuse silence with mystery, or distance with fate.

I didn’t lose anything here.

I reclaimed myself.

And I promise, quietly, without drama, without performance:

The love that comes next will not require me to disappear while I wait for it.

I’m proud of myself. Not for finally leaving him.

But for finally honoring myself.

— Older Sister