It Wasn’t Just Sadness—It Was Rage

I thought I was just tired.
Worn out.
Sad in a way I couldn’t name.
But underneath the sadness—
there was something hotter.
Sharper.
Older.

Rage.

Rage I wasn’t allowed to have.
Rage I swallowed to keep the peace.
Rage I disguised as silence, softness, self-sacrifice.

I wasn’t just hurting.
I was boiling.
Quietly.
Dangerously.
With every “It’s fine” that wasn’t fine.
With every smile I wore like armor.
With every moment I made myself smaller just to survive love, family, the world.

The truth is, I learned early that “good girls” don’t get mad.
We’re supposed to be sweet, not strong.
Forgiving, not furious.
We were taught to understand everyone’s pain but our own.

So I never screamed.
I collapsed.
I never burned.
I shut down.

And now I see it clearly:
That heaviness on my chest?
That numbness I kept calling depression?

It was grief and fury—
turned inward.
It was fire with nowhere to go.
It was everything I didn’t say when I should have.
It was the cost of staying quiet in a world that needed my roar.

But I’m not ashamed of it anymore.
I’m done pretending it’s not there.
Because the most dangerous kind of anger is the one that goes unspoken.

So now, I let it rise.
Not to destroy—
but to release.
I write it.
I scream into pillows.
I cry with purpose.
I punch the air, walk until my legs shake, whisper “never again” to the wind.
Not because I’m broken—
but because I’m healing.

You don’t need to bury your fire to be loved.
You don’t need to stay quiet to be safe.
You don’t need to be soft to be sacred.

Your power never left.
It just sank beneath all the shoulds.
It’s waiting for you to call it back.

So let this be your permission slip:
To stop apologizing for what hurt you.
To stop collapsing under your own unspoken truth.
To let your sadness speak—
and find out it has a warrior’s voice.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

🔥 Release Exercise: Write the Angry Letter

Don’t hold it in.
Don’t tidy it up.
Don’t make it nice.

Write the letter.
Not to send—just to set yourself free.

Here’s how:

1. Choose your recipient.
   A parent. A partner. A friend. An ex. A system. A younger version of you.
   Anyone your soul still flinches for.

2. Set the rules aside.
   No grammar checks. No censoring. No “but I understand why they…”
   Just the truth. The full, hot truth.

3. Start it like this:

   “I never said this, but I’ve carried it. And I need to let it go.”

4. Let it all out.
   The words you choked down.
   The apologies you made just to stay safe.
   The moments you wanted to scream but stayed silent.
   The pain. The anger. The betrayal. The shame.

   Write it until you feel lighter.
   Until your hands shake or your tears fall or your chest opens.

5. Then choose what to do with it.
   Burn it.
   Rip it up.
   Bury it.
   Fold it into a journal.
   Turn it into art.

Whatever you do—let it move.

Because anger isn’t poison when it’s expressed with purpose.
It’s medicine.
It’s a map.
And when you stop hiding it, it shows you where your freedom begins.

Unfiltered. Raw. Me.
~Cassandra