Some years don’t feel like “chapters.”
They feel like molting—raw, inevitable, and tender.
2025 has been called the Year of the Snake: the year of shedding old skins, releasing what can’t come with you, and surviving the sting of rebirth. And whether or not you follow zodiac cycles, the metaphor still lands: there are seasons when life presses so hard against who you’ve been that something has to split.
Not because you’re failing.
Because you’re outgrowing what was never meant to hold you.
This year has been that for me.
Not a gentle transformation.
A tearing away.
A pruning.
A withering of things I once tried to keep alive with sheer willpower and hope.
And yet—somehow—here I am. Still breathing. Still trying. Still choosing the smallest forms of light.
Sometimes survival is the most sacred form of transformation.
When the Mask Falls, It’s Not Subtle
There’s a particular kind of grief that comes when a long-term relationship reveals its true nature. Not a sudden misunderstanding—an unmasking.
This year, a long-term friendship showed me what I didn’t want to see for a long time: toxicity that wasn’t “just a rough patch,” harm that wasn’t “unintentional,” patterns that weren’t “my fault for being sensitive.”
When the mask finally fell away completely, it didn’t just hurt—it clarified.
And clarity is a gift that sometimes arrives like a blade.
You don’t just lose a person.
You lose the version of reality you kept adjusting yourself to fit.
And the truth is: once you see a pattern clearly, you can’t unsee it.
The skin has already started to split.
Clarity can break your heart—and still be a mercy.
The Pruning Nobody Sees
The outside world often only understands pain when it looks dramatic.
But some of the deepest breakdowns are quiet—a slow draining, a long season of running on fumes, the invisible cost of holding yourself together in survival mode for years, decades, or your entire life.
This year didn’t only prune relationships.
It pruned energy. It pruned certainty. It pruned the illusion that I could keep powering through indefinitely if I just tried harder.
Job-related aspects have gone stagnant—like effort meets wall, like momentum meets mud.
And it’s hard not to internalize that as failure.
But stagnation isn’t always a sign you’re doing something wrong.
Sometimes it’s a sign your system is finally refusing to sacrifice itself to keep the world comfortable.
Sometimes the body becomes the boundary the soul couldn’t set earlier.
If you can’t “push through” anymore, it may be because your spirit is finally telling the truth.
The Cost of Being the One Who Sees Clearly
There is a hidden cost to awareness that few people talk about.
When you begin to see patterns clearly—especially patterns of dysfunction, narcissism, and long-term harm/abuse—you often become the least convenient person in the room. Not because you are wrong, but because your clarity threatens the stories others rely on to stay comfortable.
It is easier for people to believe you are exaggerating than to admit they missed something for years (or that they chose not to act for years).
Easier to call you “too much” than to face the truth that harm was normalized.
Easier to diagnose your pain than to interrogate the system that caused it.
So, the one who sees clearly is often isolated.
Not because they are broken.
But because truth has weight—and not everyone is willing to carry it.
This is especially true when narcissistic dynamics are involved. Narcissistic systems do not survive honesty. They survive silence, doubt, confusion, and misplaced loyalty. Anyone who disrupts that equilibrium becomes a threat.
And suddenly, the narrative shifts:
You’re “difficult.”
You’re “unstable.”
You’re “overreacting.”
Not because it’s true—but because it’s effective.
Clarity often costs community before it creates freedom.
When “Family” Means “Unsafe”
One of the hardest spiritual lessons is this:
Some people will call a place “home” because it’s familiar—
even when it’s hostile.
Even when it’s violent.
Even when it costs you your nervous system, your dignity, your safety, your health.
This year, family situations exploded to the point that I had to flee for genuine safety—for me and my cat. And the grief of leaving wasn’t just about the place. It was about what people refused to acknowledge.
Extended family insisted I should “love the good and ignore the bad.”
That I should “face and talk to them or I’ll never heal.”
That I “actually want a relationship,” so I should jump into family therapy with my abusers as if time, truth, and safety don’t matter.
As if my body hasn’t spent 33 years learning what danger feels like. As if I don't have a lifetime of experience proving just how hostile, aggressive, dangerous, and abusive those people are.
Some people don’t want the truth because the truth would demand they change their role in the story.
So, they ask you to keep bleeding quietly—so they don’t have to feel uncomfortable.
But refusing to return to harm is not bitterness.
It’s wisdom.
It’s self-respect.
It’s holy.
You are not required to offer access to anyone who has proven themselves unsafe.
Narcissistic Systems Don’t Just Harm Individuals—They Recruit Enablers
One of the most disorienting truths about narcissistic abuse is that it rarely exists in isolation.
There is almost always a surrounding ecosystem:
people who minimize,
people who rationalize,
people who pressure you to reconcile,
people who insist you “see both sides” even when one side is actively causing harm.
Narcissistic systems rely on outsourcing accountability.
Instead of taking responsibility, the abuser:
• reframes themselves as misunderstood
• positions themselves as the victim
• recruits others to pressure you back into compliance
And when you refuse, you become the problem.
This is why extended family so often urges silence over safety.
Why they push “forgiveness” before accountability.
Why they confuse endurance with love.
Why they think “loyalty” is the same as care.
Because acknowledging abuse would require them to confront their own participation—past or present.
So, they choose denial.
But here is the truth they don’t tell you:
You do not heal by returning to environments that made you sick.
You do not “process” trauma by placing yourself back in harm’s path.
And you are not obligated to sacrifice your nervous system to preserve someone else’s version of peace.
Being asked to endure harm is not the same as being asked to heal.
When You Leave, They Don’t Always Let You Go
There’s a cruel myth that once you escape, the danger stops.
Sometimes leaving is when the tactics escalate:
• lies told about you—“she vanished suddenly for no reason.”
• pressure to trap you back into dependency.
• your personal information handed out as leverage.
• attempts to force contact through “help,” through “therapy,” through coercion.
And now there’s court at the beginning of January.
That kind of stress isn’t just emotional—it’s physiological.
It lives in the shoulders, the stomach, the sleep.
It makes everything feel louder and harder.
And it’s especially painful when you reach out for help and get told “we can’t help” because it isn’t partner violence—like the nervous system cares what category the harm fits into.
The truth is: coercion is coercion.
Control is control.
Abuse is abuse.
Harm is harm.
Suffering is suffering.
Wrong is wrong.
And the fact that systems can fail to recognize it doesn’t make your experience less real.
If people don’t validate what happened, that doesn’t erase what happened.
When Institutions Fail Survivors
One of the most painful betrayals after escaping abuse is discovering how many systems are not built to recognize it—unless it fits a narrow script.
If it isn’t partner violence, it’s minimized.
If it isn’t physical, it’s questioned.
If it doesn’t leave visible marks, it’s doubted.
Survivors are often told:
“Come back when it’s worse.”
“Try mediation.”
“Have you considered how they feel?”
“That doesn’t qualify.”
As if trauma cares about paperwork.
As if your body needs permission to collapse.
What this creates is secondary harm—the injury of not being believed, not being helped, not being protected after you finally spoke up.
And yet, even here, something important happens.
You begin to trust yourself more deeply.
Because when systems fail, discernment becomes survival.
You learn to listen to your body.
You learn which advice feels violent in disguise.
You learn that credibility does not equal truth.
When external validation disappears, internal truth becomes sacred.
Exhaustion Isn’t New—Only Their Attention Is
One of the loneliest parts of long-term survival is when people act like your exhaustion is a sudden development.
Like you were fine yesterday.
Like you just “need vitamins.”
Like a prescription will rewrite a lifetime of hypervigilance.
But the truth is: I’ve been running on fumes for years and years.
They just didn’t pay attention—because I kept functioning. Because I kept showing up. Because I kept finding ways to keep going through willpower.
And lately my body has been saying: no more.
Not as punishment. As protection.
The nervous system can only carry survival mode for so long before it demands a different life.
This isn’t weakness.
This is a system that has finally stopped sacrificing itself to be acceptable.
Your body is not betraying you—it is trying to bring you home.
Exhaustion as a Threshold, Not a Flaw
There comes a moment when exhaustion stops being something you can override.
Not because you are lazy.
Not because you are unmotivated.
But because your body has carried too much, for too long, without safety.
This kind of exhaustion is not solved by productivity hacks or prescriptions alone.
It is the exhaustion of hypervigilance, of bracing for impact every day, of never being fully at rest—even in your sleep.
When people insist it’s “sudden,” what they are really saying is:
“We didn’t notice how much you were holding.”
But your nervous system noticed.
And now it is asking—firmly—for a different way of living.
This is not collapse.
This is crossing a threshold.
You are no longer willing to survive at the expense of your life.
Some forms of exhaustion are the soul refusing further self-abandonment.
The Snake Doesn’t Apologize for Shedding
The snake doesn’t ask permission to molt.
It doesn’t negotiate with the old skin.
It doesn’t stay loyal to what’s too tight just because it used to fit.
It withdraws.
It becomes quiet.
It lets the old shell crack and fall away.
And yes—it looks messy.
It looks like “falling apart.”
But it’s actually a very specific kind of becoming.
This year has asked me to let a lot fall away:
relationships, illusions, denial, the fantasy that people who have always minimized harm will suddenly protect the truth.
There’s grief in that.
And there’s also freedom.
Because when the old skin comes off, you can finally breathe.
Sometimes the most faithful thing you can do is stop pretending what hurts you is love.
What “Healing” Actually Looks Like
Healing isn’t always yoga and journaling and smiling through pain.
Sometimes healing looks like:
- not going back
- not explaining
- not negotiating your safety
- not taking the bait
- not handing your truth to people committed to misunderstanding you
Sometimes healing looks like a locked door and a quiet room.
Sometimes healing looks like building a life so small and safe that your nervous system can finally unclench.
Sometimes healing is not “reconciliation.”
Sometimes healing is release.
And yes, you can still keep your heart tender while your boundaries become steel.
Healing isn’t proving you’re fine—it’s building a life where you don’t have to be in survival mode to exist.
Small Joys Are Not “Small” When You’re Surviving
Here is something I refuse to minimize:
Snuggling with my cat is not a “small” joy.
When your world has been chaos and threat and exhaustion, a warm purring body against your chest is medicine.
It’s proof that tenderness still exists.
It’s a living reminder: I am capable of care. I am capable of receiving comfort. I am still here.
Sometimes joy isn’t fireworks.
Sometimes it’s safety.
Sometimes it’s quiet.
Sometimes it’s one moment where your body loosens by half an inch.
And that counts.
That matters.
Joy doesn’t have to be loud to be holy.
Practical Soul-Grounding for the Hardest Seasons
When life is heavy and systems are imperfect and people don’t understand, these are the kinds of practices that aren’t “cute”—they’re stabilizing:
1) Name what’s real.
Even privately. Especially privately.
Truth re-stitches the mind after gaslighting and minimization.
2) Let “rest” be a strategy, not a luxury.
Rest doesn’t fix everything—but it gives your body a chance to stop screaming.
3) Keep your world small and safe when you need to.
Healing doesn’t require performing resilience in public.
4) Choose one “anchor habit.”
A daily walk. A shower. A cup of tea. A five-minute journal entry.
Not to optimize—just to remind your system: I am here.
5) Let support be imperfect.
If you can find even one person, one space, one resource that sort of helps—let it count. Don’t let “not ideal” become “nothing.”
In survival seasons, consistency is compassion.
The Year I Stopped Returning to the Fire
This year has held moments where I felt like I was dissolving.
Not because I’m dramatic—because reality can be too sharp to hold all at once.
There were times I wanted someone—anyone—to simply say:
“I believe you.”
“That was wrong.”
“You don’t deserve that.”
“You’re not crazy.”
“You’re not making it up.”
But instead, I heard variations of:
“Try harder.”
“Talk to them.”
“Take a pill.”
“Fix it with food.”
“Stop being so intense.”
“Surely they didn’t mean it.”
And I realized something that broke me open:
Some people will ask you to walk back into the fire because it’s easier than admitting the fire exists.
So, I didn’t go back.
Not because it didn’t hurt.
Not because I didn’t grieve.
But because something in me finally loved me enough to refuse.
This year, I did not become perfect.
I became honest.
I became protective of my peace.
I became willing to look like the villain in someone else’s story if it meant I could stay alive in my own.
And that—strangely—felt like the beginning of joy.
I didn’t “fall apart.” I stopped carrying what was never mine to carry.
Choosing Myself Even When No One Clapped
This year forced me to face something quietly devastating:
that some people would rather reinterpret my pain than interrupt the pattern that caused it.
I kept waiting for someone to say, “You don’t deserve this.”
Instead, I was asked to explain myself again.
To soften my language.
To compromise my safety for the sake of appearances.
And one day, something in me went still.
Not numb.
Clear.
I realized I was done auditioning for care.
Done translating harm into palatable language.
Done shrinking my reality so others wouldn’t feel implicated.
Choosing myself did not feel triumphant.
It felt lonely.
It felt terrifying.
It felt like standing in a void without applause or reassurance.
But it also felt honest.
For the first time, my body wasn’t arguing with my choices.
For the first time, my nervous system wasn’t screaming “danger” while my mouth said “it’s fine.”
This year didn’t give me answers.
It gave me alignment.
And that has changed everything.
Choosing yourself may cost you illusions—but it gives you your life back.
The Skin You’re Ready to Shed
If you’re reading this and quietly thinking, me too—
take a breath. Let your shoulders drop. Let your body know it’s allowed to be here.
Prompts:
Where have you been asked to sacrifice your safety for someone else’s comfort—and what would honoring yourself look like instead?
What has 2025 asked you to shed—so you can finally breathe again?
Maybe it’s a relationship.
Maybe it’s the need to be believed by people who refuse to see.
Maybe it’s the illusion that you can heal by returning to what harmed you.
Maybe it’s the belief that rest must be earned through collapse.
Write your answers gently.
Not as a judgment—
as a doorway.
The skin comes off when you’re ready to live differently.
A Blessing for the Ones in the Molt
“Divine Source of Holy Mercy,
Be near to the ones who are shedding what was never safe.
Hold the tender places where the old skin split.
Strengthen the weary body.
Steady the trembling heart.
Make a way where systems fail and people refuse to listen.
Teach us that survival is not shameful.
That boundaries are not cruelty.
That peace is not something we owe others at our own expense.
Let small joys become bread.
Let rest become restoration.
Let truth become protection.
And let the new self emerging from this year
be rooted, radiant, and finally free.
So it is, and so it shall be.”
The Snake Still Lives
If 2025 has been a year of breakdowns, let this also be true:
Breakdowns can be the doorway to rebirth.
Not the kind that makes everything pretty.
The kind that makes you real.
The kind that teaches you what peace costs—and what you are no longer willing to pay.
You are still here.
You are still trying.
You are still capable of tenderness.
And if the only light you can manage today is a quiet moment, a breath, a cat curled against you—
that is not failure.
That is faith in its most human form.
Even in the molt, you are becoming—slowly, sacredly, undeniably.
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Check out some of our other articles:
-The Art of Presence and Freedom
-Finding the Light When You're Surrounded by No
-Breaking Free from Narcissistic Cycles
Jessica Carey
