22 Now Ask Yourself

There was a moment that was very telling. A gathering. A request. An empty space where someone should have stood. Not for me, but for someone who had always shown up for him.

Instead, he vanished without a word.

And in the quiet that followed, the one left hurting was doing the emotional cleanup again. There seemed to be an invisible pull to comfort him. The person carrying the weight of it was expected to be composed, forgiving, fine.

The one who triggered the hurt needed comfort more than they offered it.

And once I saw it for what it was, I could not unsee it.

Then I started asking myself the questions I had been pressured not to ask.

Now ask yourself...

Ask yourself why, if I was truly the problem, there was never any intervention. Why no action was taken. Why only stories, never steps.

Ask why a direct answer to a single question is elusive. Maybe because answering honestly would unravel the whole thing.

Ask why they came to believe I would send them away. Maybe because that was not confusion but a choice meant to sever the thread.

Ask why the story keeps shifting just enough to distract while the blame stays in one place.

Ask why silence became the safer option for everyone but the one who was hurting.

Ask why people were so quick to defend the one avoiding truth and so slow to believe the one who had every reason to tell it.

Ask why someone avoids the same room as the one who remembers clearly. Maybe it is because the stories fall apart the moment two people say them out loud in the same room.

Ask why some hide behind distance, false grace, and selective silence. Maybe because repair would expose too much.

Ask why every question is turned into an accusation.

Ask why someone so young learned to swallow fear just to keep peace that never kept them safe.

Ask why protection looked like betrayal to the ones who needed it most.

Ask why fear was minimized to protect a grown man's comfort.

Maybe shame does not always look like guilt. Sometimes it looks like distance. Sometimes it sounds like silence. Sometimes it shows up as the desperate need to be seen as good no matter what it costs others.

And if the answers make you uncomfortable, sit with that discomfort.

Because discomfort is not harm.
But silence never erased the harm.
It only protected the one who caused it.

Note
This post is a personal reflection drawn from lived experience. Names and identifying details have been changed or omitted to protect privacy. These reflections are not statements of fact about any specific individual. They are part of a personal process of healing, understanding, and reclaiming voice.