The Slowest Poison: Living with Doubt, Drop by Drop

If I had to name the worst poison in the world, I wouldn't choose anything from a laboratory. I would choose doubt.

It has no color and no smell. It doesn't burn. It works slowly, drop by drop, so quietly that for years you don't even notice you are being poisoned. You just feel a little less sure every day. A little less steady. A little less yourself.

Doubt has been in my life for as long as I can remember.

I doubted feelings. Mine and other people's. When someone said something kind, I turned it over and over, looking for what they really meant. When I felt something strongly, I asked myself whether it was real, or whether I was exaggerating again.

I doubted words. A compliment could live in me for one second before doubt arrived and took it apart. They're just being polite. They don't know you well enough. They'll change their mind.

I doubted happiness. Even in good moments, part of me stood at the side and waited for the moment to end, as if happiness were something I had borrowed and would soon have to give back.

But most of all, I doubted myself.

My worth to the people around me. Whether I am needed, or only useful. Whether people stay because they want to, or because it is easier than leaving. My decisions, every one of them, the big ones and the small ones, replayed at night until none of them looked right anymore. And all the things I once thought mattered, I started to question those too, until I wasn't sure I knew what mattered at all.

I would like to tell you that I have found the antidote. I haven't. Doubt is still here. It still answers before I do. It still whispers that I am too much, or not enough, or simply not sure.

But I have noticed one thing.

Doubt is very good at asking questions. It is much worse at answering them. It never actually proves that I don't matter. It only makes me afraid that I might not. And fear is not the same as truth, even when it speaks in the same voice.

I am writing this down, and that means something. A part of me still believes these words are worth saying, and that someone might be worth saying them to.

Maybe that small part is where the antidote begins.

Has doubt been with you for a long time too? What does it whisper to you, on the quiet nights?

Would you like to share your answer?

I read every answer myself. It stays private unless you say otherwise.

If you are in crisis or thinking about harming yourself, please reach out to local emergency services or a crisis line in your country right now. You deserve immediate support.

With love, from HerWay

← Previous story · Next story → · Back to the Journal