Inside Heilsche

He never sat me down and said, “Your job is to understand me”
Nopee,, I never signed a contract like that.
But my body arrived with that instruction like it’s already printed on my inside.

I GREW UP with this quiet rule:
If you really care about someone, you put them first.
If they are having a hard time, your feelings need to go back of the line and WAIT
So by the time this relationship came, I was already well‑trained.

I CAME IN with sentences like:
“If you really care about someone, you put them first.”
“If you are strong, you don’t complain.”
“Good women stand by their man in hard times.”

These were not just ideas. They were habits in my cells.
So when he started to share about his life, I didn’t notice what was happening.
His trauma, his marriage, his stress, his ADHD, his money problems, his history with divorce.

The first time he opened up, I felt honoured.
Finally, someone was being real with me.
Finally, I was not just “the fun girl” or “the helper.”
Finally, I was trusted.

The more he told me, the more my anger sat down. Every time something felt off in his behaviour, I remembered his stories and put my feelings aside.
If I started to feel hurt, another voice jumped in quickly:
“Be patient.”
“He helped you too.”
“He is trying.”
“It’s not easy for him.”

Sometimes it also said, “Other men are worse. At least he tells you the truth. At least he doesn’t hide everything.”

These sentences did not come from his mouth.

They were old lines from my own programming. That is what made it so dangerous.

Averraheilsche

There was nothing to argue with. It was me, talking myself out of my own reality.
It felt like there was a very old grandmother living inside my chest, shaking her head at me every time I wanted to protest.

“Don’t be silly. You know men are like this. You wanted something special, right? Well, this is the price. You’re strong, you can handle it.”

I didn’t realise that this “strength” was actually self‑abandonment with good marketing.

This is “malware”, and that is exactly how it feels to me. Old family code running in the background, quietly guiding my reactions.

Not evil. Just outdated. Just not built for the kind of life I want now.

But at that time I didn’t know how to uninstall anything. I only knew how to run the old script better.
The role that began as acting and became skin.

I have been performing “strong, understanding woman” for so long that sometimes I forget it is a performance.

I learned early that being needy, jealous, or loud made people uncomfortable. It made adults snap. It made boys pull away. It made me feel ashamed, like I had shown too much.
So I built a CHARACTER.
She was calm.
She listened a lot.
She made jokes about her own pain.
She knew everyone’s trauma but never asked for help with her own.

In this relationship, that character got a full‑time job.
I wanted to be different from the stereotype of

“crazy ex” or “clingy girlfriend” or “messy wife.”

I wanted to be the woman who “gets it”, who can sit with complexity, who doesn’t demand a fairy tale.
I thought that would protect me.
I thought being reasonable would mean I couldn’t be left.

So at first it was half acting:
I swallowed my jealousy and called it “shadow work.” I told myself that if I just healed more, I would not feel so insecure.

When I lay awake at night thinking about what he might be doing, I didn’t call it anxiety, I called it “processing.”
When I wanted a clear yes or no about our future, I told myself, “That’s my control issue, I should relax into mystery.”

Little by little, the line between the real me and the character started to blur.
I forgot I had other faces.

• Faces that cry easily,
• That get angry,
• That say “no, I don’t like this”,
• That ask for simple things without apologising.
• When I felt lonely or afraid, I swallowed it and said, “You’re just tired, don’t make it heavy.”

When I felt hurt, I reached for reasons to explain his behaviour instead of just letting myself feel hurt.

And when my body contracted at certain situations, I threw a spiritual blanket over it: “Trust. Let go. Don’t be controlling.”

The identity slowly swallowed the human inside me.
The crack started when the performance was no longer enough to keep me safe.

It was small things at first: the way I had to remove my things from certain spaces so his other life could stay neat.

The way my ideas and fantasies about places we could visit later showed up in his stories with someone else.

The way my presence had to be edited depending on who was watching.

Those moments felt like someone taking a knife to the costume and cutting straight through to my skin.
“Wait,” something inside me said, “this is not about you being evolved or spiritual. This is about you being erased.”

“Strong and understanding” is a beautiful quality. I still believe that. I want to be that woman who can hold nuance, who can sit with imperfection.

But in my life, that quality had turned into a kind of soft costume other people could lean on, without ever really choosing me, without ever really building something solid with me.

They got the benefits of my strength and understanding. I got the bill.

Averraheilsche

I used to think I was making my own choices. When I started paying attention to the language, I realised how many of those choices were already pre‑framed for me.

It showed up in tiny compliments that felt like drugs:
“You’re not like other women.”
“You know me better than anyone.”
“You are the only one who really understands my situation.”

Every time I heard those lines, something proud and hungry inside me lit up. Finally, I was special. Finally, I was not just another female body. I was a mind, a heart, a soul. I was the exception.

But these compliments came with invisible contracts glued to the back.
If I am “not like other women”, then I must never behave like “those women” he complains about. I must not get angry, emotional, demanding, jealous.

If I “know him better than anyone”, then I must always take his side, always explain him to himself, always hold space for his bad days.

If I am “the only one who really understands”, then I must stay understanding, even when my own heart is breaking.

Without realising it, I started policing myself according to those sentences.

Before I even spoke, I would ask internally: “Is this how a ‘different’ woman would react? Or am I becoming like the others?”

Other words came dressed as guilt.
“After everything I’ve done for you…”
“I’m doing my best, you know my life is complicated.”
“No one else would put up with this situation like you do.”

Suddenly, asking for something simple ~ time, help, respect, clarity, will looked selfish and ungrateful next to his list of sacrifices.

There were also soft threats:
“I can’t handle drama right now.”
“If you push, I will shut down.”
“I just need peace, I can’t deal with pressure.”

My body translated it instantly:
“If you are honest about your needs, you will lose me.”
“If you show too much emotion, I will disappear.”

So I adjusted. I removed sharp edges from my sentences. I wrapped every request in layers of apology.

I said

“maybe, if it’s okay, if you feel like it”

instead of “I want.”

It took me a long time to admit that these patterns live in me too. I know how to say “it’s fine, don’t worry” when it’s not fine at all, and then hope someone will read my mind.

But still, in this relationship, the main direction of power was clear: his words shaped the space. My words were busy managing his comfort.

When I finally learned terms like guilt‑tripping, double bind, coercive control, scarcity tactics, it was like someone handed me a map of a city I had been wandering in blindfolded.

It didn’t suddenly make him evil and me pure. It just gave names to the fog.
The next time I heard, “You know how difficult my situation is,” right after I shared something painful, a second voice inside could say, “Notice that. Notice how the focus moved away from you.”

That tiny distance between the situation and my reaction was the beginning of my escape route.
Killing the loyal voice in my own head

There is a part of me that would choose loyalty over oxygen.
She will find excuses for almost anyone she care about:
“He’s tired.”
“He’s traumatised.”
“He’s doing better than before.”
“At least he is honest.”
“Other men are worse.”

This voice is not my enemy. She helped me survive parents who didn’t always have capacity, lovers who were half‑there, friends who disappeared. She let me see subtle kindness in people who were clumsy with love.
Without her, I might have grown hard and bitter. She kept my heart soft.

Averraheilsche

But somewhere along the way, she started guarding the wrong thing.
Instead of protecting me, she started protecting the people who were hurting me from the truth of what they were doing.

Whenever a clear red flag appeared, she grabbed it and painted it a softer colour.
“He didn’t mean it.”
“He’s confused.”
“He just doesn’t know how to love any better.”

If someone else described the same situation to me, I would call it unacceptable. But in my own life, the loyal voice always showed me the “context”, the “reasons”, the “pressure he is under.”

Sacred violence, for me, did not mean cutting people off in rage. It meant turning toward that inner voice and, for the first time, saying no to her.

“Stop defending someone who would never defend you the same way.”
“Stop minimising what your body is screaming about.”
“Stop turning clear disrespect into a complicated poem called ‘love’.”

Sometimes it felt cruel. Like killing my favourite pet.
Part of me kept saying, “If I don’t understand him, who will? If I don’t hold space, who will hold him?”

But there was another question underneath: “If I keep doing this, who will hold me?”

The day I really let that land, I cried in a way I hadn’t cried before. Not about him. About me.

Averraheilsche

About all the times I had stood on my own side for exactly two seconds and then walked away again.
I realised no boundary in the outside world would ever last if this loyal voice could still override it from inside.

So I didn’t kill her completely. I gave her a new job.
She can still see the best in people. But she no longer has permission to silence my anger when someone crosses my lines.

Im now building a fortress from the inside out
For most of my life, protection meant things outside of me.
More money.
A better bussiness model.
A different city.
A clearer partner.
A community that would “have my back.”
All of those matter.

I’m not romanticising poverty or isolation.

But I started to notice that even when external circumstances improved, I could still feel unsafe if my inner world was chaos.
I could have a stable house and still be weak against one message on my phone.
I could live in paradise and still be mentally trapped in the same emotional patterns.
What I was missing was a kind of inner fortress.
Not a wall that keeps everyone out. More like a centre of gravity that belongs to me.

It began in very small, almost boring ways:
I decided that in the morning, before I checked my phone, I would check in with myself. Not in a big ritual way.

Just: “How do I feel? What is heavy? What do I need today?” Even if I only had two minutes with my hand on my chest.

I started to notice when my body was triggered: heart racing, breath shallow, obsessive thinking.

Instead of immediately reacting ~ sending a message, making a big decision ~ I tried to give myself 24 to 72 hours. No long texts. No dramatic moves. Just time to come back into my body.

Sometimes I failed.

Sometimes I sent the essay‑length paragraph anyway. But even that failure showed me how strong the pattern was.

I also began to cultivate an “observer” voice. Not the harsh critic, not the loyal defender, but a quieter part that could say:
“You are in a trauma response right now, not in reality.”
“You are trying to manage his feelings so you don’t have to feel abandoned.”
“Your urge to fix this immediately is actually your fear of being alone.”
That observer did not speak in theory.

She spoke in simple sentences I could hear even when I was flooded.

These tiny practices became bricks. One day at a time, one morning at a time, one honest note in my journal at a time.

The more bricks I laid, the more I could feel something new:

“My reality belongs to me. People can spin, explain, soften, deny. They can tell their own version. But I am the one who decides what I experienced and what it meant.”

Averraheilsche

It doesn’t mean I am always right. It means I am always allowed to start from my own perception, not from someone else’s permission.

That was a new sensation. Strange, a little scary, and also addictive in a different way.

Learning sharp empathy
I have always been the empathetic one. In almost every group, I am the person people tell their secrets to. I see the tiredness in eyes, the way someone fidgets, the way their voice changes when they talk about certain topics.

For a long time, I thought my empathy was only a gift. I didn’t see how often I used it against myself.
When someone showed me their pain, I would instantly drop my own. Their childhood stories, their diagnosis, their mental health, their stress at work, their unhappy marriage, their terrible ex.

It all moved to the centre of the room. My own hurt was pushed to the sides like old furniture.
If I was angry and then they cried, my anger evaporated. I was the one comforting, explaining, soothing. My nervous system relaxed only when theirs did.

What I’m learning now is something I call sharp empathy.
Sharp empathy can sit with someone’s tears and still feel my own wound. It can say:
“I see your trauma. I see that you are trying in your own way. I know you are not a cartoon villain.”
and also:
“I will not let that be an excuse for you to treat me carelessly.”
“I will not stay in a pattern that makes me sick just because your story is sad.”

Sharp empathy has edges. It doesn’t let every story slide directly into permission.

This has changed the way I listen.
When someone explains why they did something that hurt me, I pay attention, but I also watch what happens next. Do their actions shift? Do they take responsibility? Or is this explanation just another way to reset the game so we can play the same round again?

If nothing changes, the story becomes noise. I still understand. I just no longer sacrifice myself at the altar of that understanding.

It feels less “holy.” Less like the spiritual fantasy of the woman who loves unconditionally. But it feels more honest.

And in the end, honesty is starting to feel more sacred to me than sacrifice.

Averraheilsche

One of the most powerful shifts has been learning to sense the hunger underneath people’s behaviour.
Not in a mystical way. Just by watching.

Some people are hungry to be admired.
Some are hungry to feel safe.
Some are hungry for control.
Some are hungry to be rescued.
Some are hungry to be the good one, the victim, the hero.

And then there is my hunger:
To be chosen.
To be understood.
To finally be the one someone actually builds a life with, not just a deep conversation or a secret room.

In this relationship, I started to see how our hungers matched.

His hunger: someone who could always understand, who could hold his guilt, his conflict, his split life.
My hunger: to be the one who understands him “more than anyone”, to be so special that my understanding would eventually be rewarded with a higher place in his life.

Our hungers clicked together like puzzle pieces. It felt like destiny. It was actually compatibility at the level of wound.
Once I saw it like that, some romance fell away. It became easier to ask hard questions:

• “If I keep feeding his hunger like this, what happens to me in one year?”
• “Who will I be. ~ if I spend five more years being the woman who absorbs everything but is never fully chosen?”

The images that came were heavy.
I saw myself getting older but not stronger, more “wise” but less alive, still explaining his patterns to myself and others while my own life stayed small.
It hurt to admit that. But it also helped me take my hand off the stove.

Because the truth is: I cannot change his hunger. I can only decide whether I want to keep supplying it with my energy.

Averraheilsche

I used to believe that power was mainly about words. If I could just say the right thing, explain myself clearly, be logical enough, he would understand and everything would shift.
Now I can feel that power lives much lower in my body.

Prey energy in me feels like this:
My shoulders curve in.
I speak quickly, trying to cover every angle, trying to make sure he “gets it.”
I scan his face while I am talking, looking for signs ~ is he annoyed, is he bored, is he about to leave?
I wait to see if I am still safe in his eyes before I know if he is safe in mine.

Sovereign energy is different.
My back is straight but not stiff.
My breath goes all the way down to my belly.
I feel the floor under my feet.
I am aware of my own heart rate, not just his mood.

My sentences get shorter.
“I want this.”
“I don’t want that.”
“This doesn’t work for me.”
“I’m not available for this anymore.”
No drama. No long report. Just clear.
It sounds simple, but for me it is huge.

My old pattern is to over‑explain until the other person is convinced. To argue for my own worth. To present evidence like a lawyer.

When I change the posture first, my words naturally reduce. I speak from a different place.
Of course, not everyone likes this version of me. Some people test it.

They say things that used to pull me back:

• “You’ve changed.”
• “You’re so cold now.”
• “I don’t feel safe when you are like this.”
• “I miss the old you, the more open you.”

In the past, these comments would throw me into guilt and panic. I would try to prove that I was still loving, still kind, still safe.

Now, when I hear them, it feels more like data.
It tells me: “Your new boundaries are real. People who benefited from the old version feel the difference.”

I still wobble. Sometimes I fall back.

But even one “no” where I used to say “it’s okay,” even one moment where I sit in silence instead of rushing to apologise, changes something inside my nervous system.
It’s like training a muscle I didn’t know I had.

The last part is the hardest to admit: all of this ~

• Understanding trauma bonds,
• Seeing coercive tactics,
• Reading hunger,
• Playing with energy

It is power.
Not Instagram power. Not quotes and aesthetics. Real power. The kind that can move people.

Power by itself is neutral. I feel that very clearly.
I can use these skills to:

• Push back.
• Win arguments.
• Make sure I never feel small again by making someone else feel smaller.
• Manipulate in smarter ways than people once manipulated me.

I would be lying if I said that possibility never attracts me. There is a part of me, the angry one, the humiliated one, that wants revenge. That wants of certain men to feel the same confusion, the same longing, the same humiliation I once felt.

But underneath that, there is another part. A quieter one.

She does not want a life built on revenge. She wants a life built on clarity. On not being hooked so easily. On staying soft without being stupid.

Averraheilsche

So these days, when I feel that temptation to “play back,” I try to slow down and ask:
“Will this make my life cleaner or messier?”
“Is this really power, or is it just another way of staying tied to them?”
Most of the time, my body knows the answer before my mind does.

From shattered reality to sovereign mind is not a straight line. I still have moments where I check the phone too often, where I replay old conversations, where I wonder if I am being too harsh or too demanding.

I still sometimes dream that if I just heal a little more, understand a little more, he will finally show up in the way I wanted from the beginning.

But there is also a new voice now. It doesn’t shout. It just stands there, solid, like a woman at the door of her own house.
It says:

“You are allowed to believe your own eyes.”
“You are allowed to leave the table when love is too expensive for your soul.”
“You are allowed to hold your truth even if people roll their eyes, even if they call you difficult, even if they never understand.”

Averraheilsche

That voice is my fortress.
I am still learning to listen to her first.