Felix was once a strong man, but life had carved deep scars into his soul. He had known rejection far too intimately first from people who turned their backs on him, then from job opportunities that slipped away just when he thought he had found stability. But what broke him most was the loss of those he loved his mother first, then the woman he called his wife.
After her death, Felix was no longer the same. He became vulnerable, like a man stripped of all defenses. In the silence of his room, he would cry like a child. If anyone had seen him then, they would have felt pity not just for his tears, but for the weight he carried on his heart.
A thought haunted him constantly: everything I love is taken away from me. Whether by death or by rejection, it all left. This belief rooted itself so deep inside him that he began to fear even affection. He once found himself growing fond of a girl not romantically, but with the care of a father. But the fear struck him again: What if she, too, is snatched away because of me?
All these thoughts were born from trauma. They weren't real but they felt real.
And then, one day, something shifted inside him. Felix decided he couldn't live like this anymore. He decided to heal. Not by waiting for someone to fix him, but by taking responsibility for his own wounds.
Healing, he learned, is not easy. It is lonely. No one comes with a bandage for your soul. And if you hand someone else the key to your pain, they might use it against you even unintentionally. People, even those close to you, may hurt you with the very words you once used to cry for help.
That's when Felix realized: true healing must come from within. It's not that everyone is cruel but no one can understand your pain like you do. No one is a hundred percent your well-wisher. Some walk with you, yes but that doesn't mean you can rely fully on them.
So Felix stood up, slowly, from the ruins of his past. He chose to stitch his wounds himself. And in that quiet, painful process… he began to live again.