The Grief No One Expects

There is a kind of heartbreak that surprises you the kind that arrives unexpectedly yet quietly and leaves you questioning yourself more than ever before. 

Sometimes it comes from a connection that was never clearly defined. A bond that existed somewhere between closeness and distance. Just enough warmth to make you believe it meant something, but never enough certainty to know if it was real.

You tell yourself you’re imagining it. That maybe you’re asking for too much. That maybe, if you’re patient, things will eventually make sense.

But inconsistency has a way of slowly wearing down even the strongest sense of self. When someone gives you moments of attention and then disappears into silence, you begin searching for meaning in every small interaction. You start wondering why you were so open, so giving, and so transparent with this person. Was it because you believed the connection was something rare? Or was it simply because, after a long time, you wanted to feel something again?

The hardest part isn’t the ending. It’s realizing that what hurt you most wasn’t the person themselves, but the feeling they awakened inside you, a feeling you thought you had already overcome. The quiet fear of never being enough. Of being easily forgotten.

Sometimes people enter our lives not to stay, but to reveal the places within us that still need healing.

And grief doesn’t always follow logic. You can grieve something that was never fully yours. You can feel the loss of something that never truly had a name.

But with time comes clarity.

The people who truly value you don’t leave you guessing about where you stand. They don’t create confusion where there should be sincerity. Real connection doesn’t rely on uncertainty.

Eventually, you stop asking why things unfolded the way they did. You are actually grateful they walked away from you because you were unable to take that step yourself. You are thankful for the good memories and for this ache that made you realize that you really don’t need them or their validation to be happy. 

You begin to recognize something far more important: your ability to care deeply was never a weakness. It was simply given in the wrong place.

And that realization, quietly and slowly, is where healing begins.

Survival Mode

For most of my life, I thought the way my mind worked was normal. Recently, a close friend of mine who is a therapist told me something that initially confused me. She said that after getting to know me, she realized I seem to live in a constant “Survival Alert Mode”

At first I didn’t fully understand what she meant. But the more I reflected on it, the more it made sense. 

When someone experiences repeated trauma throughout their life, the body and mind adapt in order to survive. One of the ways they do that is by constantly scanning for danger. You read body language, you read the room for signs, you analyze words and refer to previous scenarios in your mind. Your mind starts overthinking , predicting worst-case scenarios, and mentally preparing for everything that could possibly go wrong. It feels like a form of protection as if being mentally prepared will somehow soften the blow when something bad happens.

But one of the most important lessons I’ve learned is this no matter how prepared you think you are, when something truly painful happens, it is almost always worse than anything you imagined. It’s like studying a subject for a test you are not sure you will take but finding out you were tested in a whole other subject. And usually it’s POP Quiz 🫨

All that constant vigilance, all that overthinking it doesn’t actually shield you from the pain.

So I’m trying to shift my perspective.

I’m trying to let go of the illusion that I can prepare myself for every possible outcome or control what life brings my way. Because the truth is, none of us really can.

What I can hold on to instead is something much more grounding is my faith in Allahs will. And my Faith that everything that is meant to happen will happen and now I will focus on this verse from the Quran.

“إِنَّ مَعَ الْعُسْرِ يُسْرًا” 

It means:

“Indeed, with hardship comes ease.”

Looking back at everything I’ve been through, I can see that even in my hardest moments, Allah was always there in my life in so many ways and has sent me so many amazing people to lift me up from my lowest guiding me, strengthening me, and helping me find my way through things I once thought I would never survive.

Maybe the goal isn’t to stay in survival mode forever.

Maybe the goal is to trust that whatever comes, Allah will give us the strength to get through and to have that kind of trust is far more powerful than any attempt at control. 

Living in a constant state of anxiety and hyper alertness is exhausting both mentally,emotionally, and physically. 

Trusting that Allah is guiding me allows me to release the impossible burden of trying to predict and prevent every impossible outcome, and instead, find strength and peace in the present moment and comfort knowing that Allah will always be there 💕 and to always say الحمدلله