You don't know me.

You see a face, a name, a story filtered through rumor and shadow. But you don't know the weight I carry, the scars I hide beneath practiced smiles and careful words. You don't know the battles I've fought just to stand here—whole, if not unbroken.

People are quick to judge. They see the choices I make, the masks I wear, and they think they have me figured out. Cruel names, whispered betrayals, sideways glances—I've collected them all, like stones in my pockets, reminders of how easily the world can turn cold. They call me damaged, manipulative, even heartless. But none of them have lived my life. None of them have faced my demons and survived the fire.

You don't know what it is to be misunderstood—to have your pain dismissed, your motives twisted, your truth denied. You don't know what it's like to scream in a silent room, to beg for someone to see you, really see you, and be met with nothing but indifference or suspicion. Every judgment, every misunderstanding, is a fresh wound layered over the old ones. Sometimes I wonder if people judge because it's easier than understanding. If they keep me at arm's length, maybe my darkness won't touch them.

But here's what you don't see: every scar is a story of survival. Every mistake, a lesson learned the hard way. My resilience was forged in fire—abuse, betrayal, loss. I didn't choose these battles, but I chose to keep fighting. I chose to rise, again and again, even when the world tried to drag me under.

There were days when I wanted to disappear, when the weight of being misunderstood felt unbearable. When I was thirteen, obsessed with control, I starved myself not for beauty but for a sense of power in a world that felt determined to break me. I watched my body waste away, convinced that if I could just make myself small enough, maybe the pain would shrink too. But it never did. The emptiness only grew.

I learned early that people see what they want to see. They saw a privileged child, not the girl hiding bruises in her soul. They saw rebellion, not desperation. They saw seduction, not a desperate grasp at agency after years of being powerless. They judged my coping mechanisms—my pills, my lovers, my walls—never stopping to ask what I was running from, or what I was running toward.

To those who misjudged me, may your own demons teach you what mine have taught me. May you learn that strength is born from struggle, and that freedom is not the absence of pain, but the ability to rise above it. I don't hate you. I wish for your awakening. Because when your own darkness comes calling, I hope you find the courage to face it head-on. And when you do, I hope you remember me—not as someone broken by your words, but as someone who rose above them1.

I am not angry anymore. I am free. And that freedom is something no judgment or misunderstanding can ever take away from me.

So the next time you think you know me, remember: you only see the surface. The real story is written in scars, in battles survived, in the quiet strength of a soul that refused to be defined by anyone else’s misunderstanding.

You don’t know me. But I know myself. And that is enough.