TIMELESS REFLECTIONS BY ZOEY

As if love only exists when it is formally requested.

As if support only counts when it is scheduled.

As if care is optional unless someone explains it step by step.

And every time he said that, one memory came back to me.

I was seven months pregnant, sitting on the floor, unable to get up.

I reached my hand out to him and asked for help.

He looked at me and said, “Why did you sit on the floor if you could not get back up?”

He did give his hand after that.

But I did not take it.

Something in me broke quietly in that moment.

I pulled myself up using the center table instead.

Because even then, I understood something my heart did not want to accept.

Help given after humiliation does not feel like help.

It feels like charity.

There were nights when gas pains twisted my back so badly that my spine felt like it was splitting.

I was crying.

Moving.

Trying to breathe through it.

He was lying next to me, scrolling on his phone.

I remember calling other people, asking them what to do, how to ease the pain, how to survive it.

He saw me.

He heard me.

And he chose to act like I did not exist.

That kind of invisibility changes you.

After delivery, when I had complications, I could not walk properly.

The first time they made me stand, my vision went black.

I could not put weight on my legs.

I needed time.

And instead of protection, I became a joke.

He told people I would be discharged once I stopped my drama and started walking.

As if pain was performance.

As if weakness was manipulation.

As if I was choosing this.

Those words stayed with me longer than the pain ever did.

When you are wounded during moments where you are supposed to be held,

your mind starts rewriting dangerous stories.

You start believing you ask for too much.

You start minimizing your pain.

You stop reaching out.

You learn to suffer quietly so you are not accused of exaggeration.

That is how it affected my mental health.

Not one dramatic event.

But many small abandonments stacked on top of each other.

I did not want luxury.

I did not want perfection.

I wanted presence without having to beg for it.

I wanted care without being shamed for needing it.

I wanted to feel like my pain mattered.

When support is missing during your most fragile moments,

it does not just hurt your body.

It fractures your sense of worth.

And when someone later asks why you became distant, cold, or disconnected,

they never trace it back to the nights you were crying beside them, unseen.

Some wounds are not loud.

They are quiet, repeated, and ignored.

And those are the ones that change you forever.

I did not ask for too much. I asked the wrong person.