They weren’t kind, they were calculated. That fake concern, the sweet words, the thoughtful gestures, all timed perfectly to shut me up or pull me back. It was manipulation dressed up as care. The worst kind of harm isn’t loud, it’s soft. It’s the kind that confuses you into staying, doubting yourself, and calling betrayal just a bad moment. I don’t fall for kindness that costs me peace anymore. If it comes with control, it’s not kindness, it’s a weapon. - Zenda-Lee Williams

Some people don’t want peace. They want chaos they can control. They don’t know how to exist without a problem to stir, a wound to poke, or someone to punish. And when you stop reacting, when you no longer give them that power, they feel irrelevant. That’s when they’ll either disappear or come back louder. Don’t take the bait. You’re not here to bleed for people who feed off conflict. - Zenda-Lee Williams

Some people don’t actually want honesty, they want power. They want to control the version of you they present to others. The moment you stop letting them shape the story, the moment you stop defending their harm or letting things slide, they panic. They twist it. They gather their audience. And suddenly, you’re the problem for not playing along anymore. But refusing to shrink isn’t the issue. It’s the exposure they can’t handle. And that’s not on you. - Zenda-Lee Williams

Some people will try to destroy your credibility before they ever touch your character. They’ll twist the story, plant doubt, build a version of you that fits their agenda, and sell it to anyone willing to listen. It’s not about truth, it’s about control. When you refuse to play along, they label you difficult, unstable, angry, bitter. But the truth is, your refusal to be controlled threatens the version of them that needs you small. That’s why they talk. That’s why they gather people. That’s why they smear. - Zenda-Lee Williams

Some people don’t want the truth, they want control. When you stop letting them shape the story, they twist it, gather enablers, and call you the problem. But your refusal to shrink exposes everything they worked to hide. - Zenda-Lee Williams

Some of them didn’t hit, and that’s what made it harder to name. No black eyes, no broken bones, just the kind of harm that crawls under your skin and makes you second guess everything about yourself. They used silence, shame, and confusion as weapons. The world saw smiles, but behind closed doors, there were games that broke something in me. Abuse doesn’t always look violent. Sometimes it’s the manipulation, the subtle control, the fear of doing anything wrong that leaves the deepest scars. - Zenda-Lee Williams

They didn’t have to scream to break you, they just had to twist your reality until you questioned your own mind. That’s the cruelty of covert manipulation, where calm voices hide calculated harm and every denial chips away at your clarity. It’s not the volume of the abuse, it’s the precision. And by the time you realise what’s happening, you’re the one apologising, overthinking, losing sleep, while they walk away looking composed. That’s not conflict, that’s control. - Zenda-Lee Williams

They don’t come back because they love you. They come back because their new supply didn’t suffer the way you did. They miss the version of you who made excuses, walked on eggshells, cried quietly, and blamed themselves. That version was convenient. But you? Now that you’re aware, boundary-setting, healing, and harder to break? You’re a threat. And that’s why they’ll spin it, stalk it, smear it, and still pretend you were the problem. - Zenda-Lee Williams

Some people keep others small because they’re terrified of what it would mean if you truly healed, grew, moved on. Your strength exposes their stagnation, your peace highlights their chaos. That’s why they poke, provoke, drag you back. It’s not love, it’s fear of being left behind. - Zenda-Lee Williams

They always forget the parts that broke you. They minimise it, rewrite it, or act like it never happened. But your body remembers, your silence remembers, and eventually you do too. Not out of bitterness, but because survival demands it.  - Zenda-Lee Williams

They didn’t break me just by hurting me, they broke me by acting like it didn’t matter. That’s what people don’t talk about enough. The pain doesn’t just come from what was done, it comes from the silence that followed. The pretending. The rewriting. The way they carried on like I was the problem. That’s what leaves a scar you have to crawl out of. - Zenda-Lee Williams

Sometimes the people who grew up in the same house as you are the ones who cut you the deepest. They know your fears, your silence, your loyalty, and they use all of it against you. Family doesn’t mean safe. And no matter how much history or blood connects you, you’re allowed to walk away from people who made you feel invisible in your own story. - Zenda-Lee Williams

Some families don’t break you loudly, they do it quietly, through guilt, shame, control, and pretending nothing ever happened. You grow up thinking love is swallowing pain and calling it loyalty. It’s not. It never was. And walking away isn’t betrayal. - Zenda-Lee Williams

Some people only love you as long as you stay small, quiet, agreeable, and broken. The moment you find your voice, set a boundary, or stop needing them, they turn. It’s not your growth that’s the problem, it’s how your growth exposes everything they refuse to face in themselves. - Zenda-Lee Williams

There’s a special kind of grief that comes from realising the people you cried to were the ones causing the tears. The ones you trusted with your pain, only to find they fed off it. That betrayal doesn’t just break your heart, it rewires your sense of safety, your ability to trust, and your understanding of love. Healing from that isn’t about moving on, it’s about learning who never deserved access to you in the first place. - Zenda-Lee Williams

Some people only want control. They mimic empathy, mirror your wounds, study your reactions, and then slowly bend your reality around their needs. It’s not always loud or violent, it’s calculated and quiet. The most dangerous ones are not the ones who yell, but the ones who watch, wait, and twist your mind while pretending to hold your heart. - Zenda-Lee Williams

There was a time when I didn’t realise my body was screaming louder than my voice ever could. I wasn’t just tired, I was shutting down. I wasn’t just anxious, I was hyper-aware of everything and everyone. Trauma doesn’t just live in your memories, it hides in your body. The gut holds what the mind can’t face. - Zenda-Lee Williams

I used to override every signal, calling it stress or overthinking. Now I listen to my body first. If I walk into a room and something feels off, I leave. If someone makes my stomach turn, I don’t reason with it. I no longer betray myself by ignoring the one part of me that has never lied, my body. - Zenda-Lee Williams

I didn’t realise my kindness had become currency for control, that the more I gave, the more they took, and the less I said, the more they expected. People like that don’t love you, they harvest you, draining your softness to feed their ego. I used to think setting boundaries made me mean, now I know protecting myself is the kindest thing I can do for the version of me that kept being exploited. - Zenda-Lee Williams

I used to explain myself to exhaustion, thinking if I just clarified one more time, they’d stop twisting it. But some people don’t want clarity, they want control. They don’t misunderstand you by accident, they do it to provoke a reaction, so they can call you crazy while keeping their side clean. I don’t rise to it anymore. If you’re baiting me, I’ll leave you holding the hook. - Zenda-Lee Williams

Being the strong one sounds like a compliment until you realise it often means no one checks if you’re okay, no one sees your breaking point coming, and your pain gets ignored because you hide it well. I carried everyone else’s weight while silently falling apart, and when I finally cracked, they called me unstable. Now I choose softness, rest, and letting people carry their own mess. I’m strong, but I’m not a dumping ground. - Zenda-Lee Williams

It wasn’t the yelling that broke me, it was the silence. The way my needs were ignored, the way I had to become low-maintenance just to be loved. That kind of emptiness doesn’t scream, it whispers, quietly shaping who you think you have to be to deserve care. I’m unlearning the lie that being easy to love means needing nothing. - Zenda-Lee Williams

In toxic relationships, some of the most dangerous people are the ones who stay calm while you fall apart. Not because they’re emotionally mature, but because they’re emotionally detached. You’re crying, shaking, begging for clarity, and they’re just… blank. That’s not peace, that’s a power play. Their stillness isn’t safety.  Zenda-Lee Williams

People talk a lot about trauma responses like fight, flight or freeze, but they don’t talk enough about fawn. The part of me that over-explained, over-apologised, and over-delivered wasn’t kindness, it was fear. Fear of being abandoned, of being misunderstood, of being too much. I bent until I disappeared just to keep the peace. And now? If I have to lose people to keep myself, so be it. - Zenda-Lee Williams

There’s a difference between being paranoid and finally trusting your body when it says something isn’t right. Most survivors are not too suspicious, we’re too used to silencing our gut to avoid conflict. We convince ourselves we’re overreacting when really, we’re reacting to the same patterns we’ve seen before. Intuition is not fear. It’s the wisdom your nervous system built when you were in environments that made you unsafe. You don’t need proof to walk away. You don’t need evidence to step back. You are allowed to trust yourself even when it makes other people uncomfortable.- Zenda-Lee Williams

Narcissistic rage is not just someone getting upset. It’s targeted, explosive, and terrifying. It’s what happens when you stop playing the role they wrote for you. When you start asking questions. When you stop apologising. It’s triggered not by your wrongdoing, but by your refusal to be controlled. It catches you off guard and leaves you questioning yourself. But their rage is not your responsibility. It’s a reaction to losing power over someone they thought would never leave. You did not provoke it. You outgrew it. And that is what they cannot stand. - Zenda-Lee Williams

When your nervous system is used to chaos, happiness feels suspicious. Peace feels like a setup. You wait for it to be taken away, because that is what always happened before. This is the aftershock of trauma, when even joy feels unsafe. So you self-sabotage, you pull away, you downplay good things before they can disappear. Not because you do not want happiness, but because part of you still believes it is not for you. Healing is letting yourself feel it anyway, even while your body braces for pain. It is reminding yourself, this is new. This is different. This is allowed. - Zenda-Lee Williams

You don't realise how much of you is gone until someone asks what you love - and you don't have an answer.

Because you've been surviving. Living on autopilot. Shrinking your personality just to keep the peace.

You became whatever they needed, whoever they liked. Until you forgot who you even were. But here's what no one tells you: Rebuilding doesn't start with answers. It starts with permission. Permission to be messy. To be loud.To be completely, fully, painfully you.And I'm finally okay with that. - Zenda-Lee Williams

The world doesn't see the nights you cried so quietly no one would hear. They don't see the strength it took to get out of bed when your soul was still shattered. Survival isn't pretty. It's lonely. It's raw. It's showing up for life with bruises no one notices and a heart still learning how to beat without fear. But if you're still here, you're not broken. You're proof that even in silence, there is power. Even in pain, there is becoming.Grief doesn't just break your heart, it breaks your identity. You wake up in a world that still spins like nothing happened, but you are no longer the same. You walk differently. Love differently. Breathe differently.Not because you want to, but because loss leaves fingerprints on your soul that never rub off. And somehow, through the ache, you rebuild. Not into who you were, but into someone softer, stronger, quieter, someone who knows exactly how precious it is just to feel anything again. - Zenda-Lee Williams

here's a version of you no one clapped for. The one who stayed quiet to stay safe. The one who smiled through betrayal. The one who kept showing up when there was nothing left to give. That version of you deserves more than just healing,  that version deserves your love, your protection, and your forgiveness. Because survival wasn't weakness. It was devotion to a future that hadn't arrived yet. And now that it has, don't leave that version behind. - Zenda-Lee Williams