When Pain Made Me Bitter: A Reflection on Wanting Others to Understand

There was a time  maybe not long ago  when I caught myself thinking:

“All will suffer as I have.”

Not out loud. Not with malice.
But in the quiet, aching corners of my mind.
It wasn’t about vengeance.
It was about being seen.

When you're drowning in pain, and the world keeps spinning like nothing happened…
It messes with you.
You start wondering if anyone really gets it.
If your suffering even matters if no one else feels it too.

At my lowest, I didn’t want others to hurt 
I just couldn’t stand feeling like the only one who was.

And I didn’t know how to name that.

So bitterness crept in.
I stopped celebrating others' joy.
I rolled my eyes at hope.
I wanted the world to slow down, to match the heaviness inside me.

But here’s the thing I’m slowly starting to understand:
Pain doesn’t get smaller by being spread.

It gets smaller by being shared — honestly, safely, without shame.

I’ve been learning to let people in 
Not to suffer with me,
but to sit with me.

And as strange as it sounds, I’m realizing that the more I open up,
the less I need others to feel what I felt.
Because I no longer feel alone in it.

There’s still a scar where that bitterness lived.
Sometimes it itches. Sometimes it screams.

But more often now, it just reminds me:

I hurt. I healed (a bit).
And I’m still here 
trying to choose empathy over echo.