Detach: The Ache of Letting Go Between Victimhood and Validation

Detach

Detach.
That’s the word.
Not from today —
but from all the years I’ve been.

It sounds like a command.
But really, it’s a confession.
Because I never could.

They say detachment is healing.
But no one tells you how much it hurts to even try.
Especially when you’ve spent years surviving on auto-pilot,
not pausing long enough to ask what you needed.

There’s a needle —
one that threads between victimisation and validation.
Sharp. Delicate.
And impossible to hold without bleeding.

Were we victims?
Yes.
Did we need validation?
Yes.
But did we have time to think about either,
while we were busy giving, bending, absorbing?
No.

And we’re never going to get it —
not from the same people we kept breaking ourselves for.
That’s what they call closure, apparently.
When we finally realise it’s not coming.
And then — we pretend we’ve made peace with it.

But it spirals.
We go back.
The ache returns.
The cycle repeats.

Here, in India, they say it out loud —
even when they beat us to pulp —
literally or metaphorically —
we’ll find ways to stay.
We’ll fantasise numbness.
Play dumb to survive.
Float between dissociation and self-blame.
Let the world call it self-victimisation,
while we quietly name it survival.

Detachment is the thing they preach.
Snip the cords. Let go.
But don’t ask me how.
I’ve got no idea.
Just a thousand tiny threads I never learned to cut.

So tonight —
as dusk folds in heavy,
pressing on my bare and brittle self,
I let it sit.

Not because it promises light.
But because sometimes,
it gives you a moment to feel the weight of it all.
To sit with the ache.
To admit what hurt.

And maybe — just maybe —
if the night is kind,
the sun will shine gentler tomorrow.

Until then,
like the good convent girl in me once sang,
softly, stubbornly:
We shall overcome. Someday.