I Was Good. It Almost Killed Me.

Witty Banter

Well Happy New Year!!! It’s been a while since I last wrote, and I’d like to pretend that absence was intentional, artistic silence, creative gestation, all that romantic nonsense. In reality, I was busy being good. Good at not speaking up. Good at not reacting. Good at letting things slide until they stacked high enough to press against my lungs. So yes, I’m back. Slightly hollowed out, mildly feral, and writing again because ignoring thoughts has never actually killed them, only taught them how to rot quietly. Today’s blog comes with no moral uplift, no neat takeaway, and definitely no comfort. If you’re looking for inspiration, this is not that. If you’re looking for something that crawls under your skin and stays there, welcome. We’re talking about goodness. The praised kind. The inherited kind. The kind that smiles while tightening its grip around your throat. Let’s begin before it finishes the job.

How I Was Taught That Silence Is a Virtue (And Pain Is Just Part of the Package)

Goodness, as it was handed to me, was never loud. It was never confrontational. It was a posture (and I hate postures), head slightly bowed, shoulders relaxed, mouth shut. Good people don’t argue. Good people don’t complain. Good people endure discomfort the way others endure weather, unpleasant but inevitable. So I learned to endure. I learned how to press words flat against the inside of my mouth until they dissolved into something bitter and useless. I learned how to keep my face neutral while something sharp twisted behind my ribs. I learned that reacting was dangerous, that silence was safer, that being agreeable was the fastest way to be loved or at least not punished. At first, it felt controlled. Mature. Almost superior. Like I was above conflict, above messiness. Like I had mastered myself. What I didn’t realise was that I wasn’t mastering anything, I was anaesthetising it. I was numbing nerve endings one by one, calling it discipline while my internal alarm system was quietly dismantled. Goodness didn’t hurt immediately. That’s how it gets you. It starts as a dull pressure, like fingers resting too long on a bruise. Uncomfortable, but tolerable. And because it doesn’t scream, you convince yourself it isn’t dangerous. Meanwhile, something inside you learns that pain is acceptable as long as it’s quiet.

The People Who Can Smell Softness and Come Hungry

There are people who don’t just notice goodness, they hunt it. They recognise the pause before you say no. The apology you offer before being accused. The way you fold instead of resisting. They don’t arrive violently. They arrive gently, almost tenderly. With expectations framed as needs. With demands wrapped in vulnerability. With exploitation wearing the face of familiarity. They take small pieces first. An evening of your time you didn’t want to give. An emotional load you didn’t have the strength to carry. A boundary you meant to set but swallowed instead. Each piece removed cleanly, almost politely, like a surgeon working without anaesthesia because you insisted you didn’t need it. And you let them. Because being good has taught you that discomfort is the price of harmony. What you don’t see is how often goodness makes you edible. How it trains you to stay still while something leans in and starts feeding.

The Cannibalism Happens Slowly (So You Don’t Panic)

No one warns you that goodness doesn’t stay external. Eventually, when there’s nothing left for others to take, it turns inward. It begins gnawing. At your sleep first, keeping you awake with conversations you never had, arguments you never finished, words you never said. Then your self worth, scraping it down to something thin and conditional. Then your sense of identity, until you can no longer tell whether you’re kind or simply empty. Goodness becomes grotesque. A thing with your face, using your voice, whispering that this is fine. That this is noble. That pain endured silently is somehow purer. It eats you carefully. Methodically. Never enough to kill you outright. Just enough to keep you weak, compliant, functional. You still show up. You still smile. You still say “it’s okay.” Meanwhile, inside, your insides look like a room after a quiet explosion, walls scorched, furniture overturned, something essential missing and no clear memory of when it disappeared.

When Goodness Stops Protecting You and Starts Executing You

There’s a moment, when you realise the truth. The goodness you defended so fiercely is standing over you. Its hands are red. Its mouth is wet. And it keeps insisting this was necessary. It tells you that speaking up would’ve made things worse. That setting boundaries would’ve hurt someone. That choosing yourself would’ve been selfish. And because you’ve listened to it your whole life, you almost believe it, even as it presses harder, even as something inside you collapses completely. Silence stops feeling peaceful. Patience stops feeling virtuous. You are not calm, you are dissociated. You are not kind, you are disappearing. And the world doesn’t intervene. The world praises you. Applauds your composure. Calls you strong. No one questions the cost because you never made it visible. You are dying in a way that doesn’t inconvenience anyone else.

Silence Is Not Purity, It’s a Slow, Bloodless Execution

This is the part no one likes to admit: goodness, when stripped of self-respect, becomes self-harm with better PR. Forgiveness given too early teaches people that your pain has no weight. Endurance without protest tells the world your limits are decorative. Silence doesn’t preserve goodness, it corrupts it, turns it inward until it becomes violent. At some point, the villain isn’t the one taking from you anymore. It’s the part of you that keeps offering itself up, insisting this is what goodness demands. You don’t bleed externally. You decay. And decay is easy to ignore.

Learning That Goodness Needs Teeth, or It Will Eat You Alive

I’m not rejecting goodness. I’m rejecting the version of it that demands self erasure as proof of virtue. Goodness needs edges. Needs refusal. Needs the ability to draw blood, just not its own. Because goodness without resistance doesn’t stay gentle. It becomes something predatory, something hollow-eyed and insatiable, something that survives by consuming the person it lives inside. Sometimes, being good is indistinguishable from being cruel to yourself. Sometimes, silence is not grace, it’s abandonment. Sometimes, the most dangerous thing you can do is stay polite while something inside you is screaming to be defended. And maybe the real act of goodness, the kind no one teaches you is choosing to stop the execution. Even if it’s messy. Even if it’s loud. Even if it finally leaves a mark on the outside. Because I’m tired of watching goodness wear people down to bone while calling it virtue. And I’m especially tired of watching it happen quietly.