I hope betrayal happens to you.

1. Betrayal annihilates projection

Until the break, part of my perception of her was hopeful illusion:

“They believe in me. They’ll have my back.”

When that illusion shattered, my nervous system stopped negotiating between fantasy and reality.

There was suddenly no ambiguity left about who was responsible for my safety. It’s me.
It was the first clean signal my system had received in years.

I stopped asking: “Do they still care?”
I started asking: “What do I do now that they’re gone?”

2. The nervous system reorganizes around truth

Betrayal produces physiological chaos (shaking, hyper focus, withdrawal) but underneath it, the brain begins rewriting its hierarchy of trust.

It removed them from the “safety” circuit and promoted my own internal regulation to the top.

That rewiring was clarity: it was my body finally saying, “This is the real map. These are the limits.”

3. It reveals motive through contrast

After betrayal, every prior interaction gets re-examined under new light.

The pieces that were once confusing (“Why did they get up and run away from me?” “Why did they start turning their camera off on meetings?”) now line up.

Pain forces pattern recognition.

I started seeing not just what happened but how I attach, idealize, and assign power.

That’s meta-clarity about my own design, not just theirs.

4. It catalyzes individuation

I’m now convinced no one can develop true independence without a rupture that severs borrowed stability.

Betrayal gives us no choice but to self-author.

It’s the moment I stopped co-writing my story with someone else’s nervous system and began writing from my own.

That’s the clarity every adult eventually needs: I trust no one but myself.

Betrayal is the most potent source of clarity I’ve ever gotten.

Clarity by combustion: what burned away was safety I thought I had but never really did, and what’s now left is unambiguous self-trust.

I hope betrayal happens to you, too.

Kaeya