The ceremony was the easy part. You’ve twisted yourself into a pretzel to be what you think someone else wants. You’ve bitten your tongue until it bled, swallowed your truth like a shard of glass, and made yourself small enough to fit into the cramped, airless box of someone else’s approval. You call it love, but let’s call it what it is: self-abandonment. A slow, brutal suicide of the soul, performed in the name of a love that demands you disappear. This isn’t a gentle fading. It’s a violent act. It’s the dull ache in your solar plexus when you say “yes” when your whole body is screaming “no.” It’s the metallic taste of resentment in your mouth when you’ve cooked another meal you didn’t want to eat, watched another movie you hated, or pretended to be fascinated by a conversation that was boring you to tears. It’s the hollowness in your chest when you look in the mirror and a stranger looks back—a stranger who is polite, accommodating, and utterly, terrifyingly empty. > *"Martyrdom is a trauma pattern dressed in spiritual clothes. It pretends to care, but it prefers to control."* We learn this betrayal early. In my years