Posted on February 28, 2025

Loyalty

Loyalty. It is spoken of in warm tones, gilded in oaths and wedding rings, pressed into the soft pages of love letters.

It is the thing that binds.
It is the thing that holds.

But in the wrong hands, loyalty is a blade.

A leash.
A quiet, obedient death.

This is how it begins—the whispered promises, the devotion without question—a love story, or so it seemed. But there was something else, something just beneath the surface, like a shadow slipping between cracks in the floor—a quiet hum of dread.

And then, one day, you wake up, and you are not where you thought you were. The walls have shifted, the air is thick, and the thing beside you is not the person you thought you loved but something else — something hollow, something that wears a face but has no soul behind it.

 

A Curse, Not a Bond

Love should be a tether between two hearts, a thing that breathes, bends, and grows. But in the hands of the wrong person, it is a contract of servitude, an altar where one must bleed and the other must feast.

You were taught that loyalty is a virtue.
You were taught that it is noble to stay.

To endure.
To fight.
For love.

But what if the battle was rigged from the start? What if the one you are fighting for is the one who is setting the fire beneath your feet?

Loyalty becomes a trick of the mind, a spell woven through intermittent rewards and punishments. One moment, there’s warmth — a kind word, a touch that reminds you of the person you first met.

The next, there is cold silence, a punishment without reason, a game where the rules are rewritten in the dark.

This is not just heartbreak. This is trauma bonding — a sinister alchemy where love and suffering become indistinguishable, where the brain, desperate for safety, clings to the very thing that is causing harm.

Research shows that intermittent reinforcement, a tactic where affection and cruelty are doled out unpredictably, strengthens emotional attachment rather than weakens it (Dutton & Painter, 1993).

And so, you stay.

Because you remember the good moments, don't you?

You remember how it felt before the air changed.

You think, maybe…

if I love harder
if I give more
it will be like it was before.

But it won’t.

It never will.

 

Uncertainty

If insecurity is a cage — then
Gaslighting is the key.

In the dim light, something shifts. Your reflection in the mirror is unfamiliar, hollow-eyed, and uncertain.

Am I overreacting?
Did I imagine it?

Gaslighting. A slow, meticulous theft of reality.

“You are too sensitive.”
“I never said that.”
“You're just trying to make me look bad.”

At first, you argue.

You hold onto the memories like talismans, proof of the things you have seen. But over time, the gaslighting does what it was designed to do — it wears you down, makes you question yourself, and makes you doubt the things you know to be true.

Psychologist Paige Sweet (2019) describes gaslighting as a tool of power and control deeply tied to social structures and vulnerabilities. It is not just a lie — it is a systematic dismantling of reality.

A way of taking the truth and turning it into a ghost.

This is the cage.

Not the locked doors.
Not the raised voices.

But the small, invisible hand pressing against your mind, rearranging your memories until you can no longer trust yourself to leave.

 

Realization

The scariest part of any horror story is not the monster lurking in the dark. It is the moment you realize the monster has been there the entire time.

It is the quiet unraveling.

The day you see them for what they are.
Not what they pretended to be.

The way their voice sounds empty now, like an echo of something once human. It is the knowledge that every “I love you” was a hook, every moment of kindness a calculated move in a game you never agreed to play.

But the worst part?

The worst part is realizing you let it happen.

Not because you were weak.
Not because you were foolish.

But because you believed in something that was never real.

And now, you must do the hardest thing of all.

You must leave.

 

Escape

The thing about haunted houses is this — they do not trap you with walls. They trap you with the belief that there is nowhere else to go.

Escaping means reclaiming your mind, piece by piece.

📝 Write it down. A truth journal — a way to hold onto your memories before they slip through your fingers. Write down what happened and what was said.

Do not let them rewrite the story.

📝 Recognize the spell. Understand the science of intermittent reinforcement — the way the brain becomes addicted to unpredictable cycles of affection and rejection (Dutton & Painter, 1993).

Name it for what it is. Break the illusion.

📝 Find your voice again. Surround yourself with people who see you. Not the version of you they created, but the real you, the one who was lost in the fog.

Studies show that social support can counteract the effects of trauma and aid in recovery (Olff & van Zuiden, 2012).

📝 Burn it down. Not the house, not the past — but the belief that you ever had to stay.

That you were ever unworthy of freedom.

That you needed their love to be whole.

 

Fini

In horror stories, there is always a survivor.

She is bruised.
Bloodied.
But she walks away.

She is the one who stops running and turns to face the monster —

Not to fight.
Not to plead.

But to see it for what it is.

A hollow thing.
A shadow of a man.

And she walks out of the house, never looking back. Because the thing about haunted houses is this:

They only have power if you stay inside.

 

When did you first realize the monster wasn’t under your bed — but beside you? Loyalty can be deadly when placed in the wrong hands. Chances are, just like I did, you’ve felt the slow horror realization yourself. Because sometimes, the scariest stories are the true ones.

References:

Dutton, D. G., & Painter, S. (1993). Emotional attachments in abusive relationships: a test of traumatic bonding theory. Violence and Victims, 8(2), 105-120. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Sweet, P. L. (2019). The Sociology of Gaslighting. American Sociological Review, 84(5), 851-875. asanet.org

Olff, M., & van Zuiden, M. (2012). Bonding after trauma: on the role of social support and the oxytocin system in traumatic stress. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 3, 18597. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov