When Her Beautiful Life Is a Disguise….Pretty on the Outside. Shattered on the Inside.
Women are taught to make things work.
We’re taught to smooth chaos into calm,
wrap humiliation in grace,
and smile like the roof isn’t caving in.
No one teaches us to recognise emotional abuse.
There’s no textbook for when care turns into control,
or when silence becomes a punishment.
It happens slowly —
a missed call, a slammed door,
a joke that cuts a little too deep.
And we stay.
Not because we don’t see it —
but because the world keeps handing us new ways to explain it away.
We become the glue.
The peacemakers.
The women who carry everyone else’s weight,
then apologise for asking for water.
I was once that woman.
I made excuses.
I minimised.
I called abandonment “space.”
I called humiliation “family dynamics.”
I told myself I was too sensitive.
I believed I needed to try harder.
Be better.
Give more.
Until there was nothing left to give.
I’ve lived through the slow erosion of self.
Where you forget what your own laughter sounds like.
Where every ‘no’ feels like betrayal.
Where your body starts keeping score
of all the places your voice couldn’t reach.
And here’s the part no one talks about:
The world applauds you for surviving it.
Not for leaving it.
You’ll be celebrated for how much you can endure —
not how fiercely you protect your peace.
I’m not writing this for pity.
And I’m not writing this with rage.
I’m writing this because somewhere,
another woman is confusing neglect with patience.
She’s calling her exhaustion a phase.
She’s dimming her fire so the room stays comfortable.
And maybe, reading this,
she’ll recognise it sooner.
I don’t have answers.
But I have experience.
And sometimes, someone else’s story
is the permission slip
you didn’t know you needed.
If you see yourself in my silence —
maybe it’s time to hear your own voice again.
If this resonates, don’t scroll past.
Share this with someone who might still be calling neglect “a rough patch.”
Tag a friend who’s learning to hear their own voice again — or one who helped you find yours. Let’s stop applauding women only for surviving pain.
Let’s start honouring them for recognising they deserve so much more.
