The Big Shrinking

When they need you to be small

Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels

Taking up space doesn’t mean taking it away from another.

Then why did every single woman in my life have to try and take it from me, starting with my mom?

Not all betrayal comes with drama and slamming doors. There’s the quiet kind — the one that comes wearing the skin of a kindred spirit, and leaves with a piece of your soul.

Most of my lessons wore the skin of a woman. Not all of them had to be proactively cruel — I learned to shrink for them before they even asked.

Here’s the part I didn’t (want to) see: the smallness became my state of being, long after they had left. It showed up in the roles I didn’t apply for. The friendships I didn’t fight for hard enough. The relationships I stayed in for too long — or the ones I let slip away.

The suffering won’t stop until you stop being complicit with those who keep inflicting it on you.

Framing abuse as “spiritual alchemy” is destruction you’ll pay for with your happiness, your sanity, and eventually, your life.

I called it growth. Its real name: self-abandonment.

Exploitation loves to come disguised as a meaningful life lesson.

It’s not.

Red flags don’t turn green just because we’re color blind.

Surrender is not the same as sucking up the unbearable or tolerating the unacceptable.

Mixing up those two is gaslighting yourself into submission to meaningless suffering.

The women who taught me to shrink thrived on it while I was choking — and still demanded gratitude.

Some people only want what others already have.

The irony? Their goal is not in keeping it, but in proving they could take it away. A friendship. A relationship. A role.

Feeling threatened by another woman usually comes down to four stories:

• Success, a relationship or achievement you want but feels out of reach.

• A version of femininity you’ve rejected but secretly long for.

• Recognition/validation you crave but aren’t receiving.

• A path you chose not to take but sometimes wonder “what if”.

Which one is yours?

Mine was all four.

I used to call it self-awareness — until I didn’t.