When My Own Path Begins to Wound Me | by Ἰωάννης Ρουλλάν | Nov, 2025
There are moments in life when the heart feels so heavy that even breathing becomes a quiet battle. These past weeks have been like that for me — long, slow, and filled with a weight I can barely name. I used to walk this path with a sense of direction, trusting that even when things got hard, I could still find peace somewhere along the way. But lately, I wake up carrying a heaviness that follows me everywhere — during conversations, during work, during meals, even in the silence of my own room. It sits in my chest, unmoving. It doesn’t shout. It just stays, like a quiet pain that refuses to loosen its grip.
I never imagined I would reach a point where the thought of walking away from this life would feel like a real and frightening option. But here I am, wrestling with the idea almost every day. I imagine what it would be like to leave, to choose another road, to start over somewhere else, far from the things that are hurting me now. And sometimes, that image feels like relief — not true freedom, but the kind of relief that comes from wanting the pain to stop.
Yet in the middle of all these thoughts, there was one moment — just one — when something small stirred inside me. It wasn’t clarity. It wasn’t comfort. It wasn’t hope. It was only a faint question, a whisper that said, If you walk away now, is it because this path is truly wrong for you… or because the pain right now feels too much to face? That question doesn’t guide me. It doesn’t heal anything. It just sharpens the ache inside my chest.
Since then, it feels like two different parts of me have been fighting inside my mind. One side is tired, broken, and desperate for peace. It tells me to leave, to stop forcing myself into spaces where I often feel unseen. It tells me to choose myself for once. It tells me that maybe walking away is the only way to breathe again.
The other part — smaller, quieter, trembling — tries to hold on. It insists that maybe this storm will pass, that maybe things will make sense again, that maybe I am not meant to give up just yet. But even that voice sounds weak now, as though it, too, is losing strength.
What makes everything heavier is the feeling of not belonging, of not being truly welcomed where I am supposed to feel safe. There are days when I move around and feel invisible, like my presence hardly matters. There are moments when I try to speak but feel unheard, as if my voice dissolves before it reaches anyone. I have felt betrayed in ways I did not expect. I have felt dismissed when all I wanted was understanding. These wounds do not fade quickly. They stay with me when I pray. They lie beside me when I sleep. They follow me like shadows I cannot outrun.
Trying to hold all of this together — my personal needs, my responsibilities, my emotions, the expectations around me — has become a quiet struggle that drains me every day. It feels like carrying too many fragile things at once, knowing that at any moment, something might slip and break. My heart feels stretched thin. My spirit feels tired in a way that words barely capture.
Sometimes I wonder if others feel this, too — the deep, silent pain of walking a path they once loved, only to suddenly feel lost in the middle of it. The loneliness of being surrounded by people yet feeling unseen. The fear of choosing between staying and breaking, or leaving and being misunderstood. The confusion of loving something that no longer feels like home.
I write this not as someone who has found answers, but as someone who is still drowning in questions. I have no clarity. I have no firm ground beneath me. I am still here, trying my best to get through each day without falling apart. I am still trying to understand why things turned out this way, and whether this struggle means something — or means nothing at all.
Right now, I stand here with a heart that feels bruised and worn. I am trying to hold on, but my hands shake. I am trying to walk forward, but each step feels unsteady. I am trying to believe that things will get better, but even that belief feels fragile, thin, and uncertain. All I know is that I am tired. Deeply tired. Tired in a way that no rest seems to fix.
And maybe this is where many of us silently meet — not in certainty or triumph, but in the raw, painful middle of our stories. In that place where we cannot see the next step, where all we have are questions, where nothing feels solid, where we hold on only because something inside us refuses to let go completely.
And so, as I continue carrying this weight, one question keeps pressing on my heart — slow, heavy, and painfully honest: When the place you once called “home” begins to feel like the very thing that is breaking you, how do you know if you’re meant to walk away… or if you’re meant to endure the storm just a little longer, even when every part of you is tired?
