When You Know What Respect Feels Like, You Stop Accepting Less

There’s a relationship in my life that has quietly, steadily redefined everything.

It’s not romantic. It’s not dramatic. It’s just real.

Working with Rhiannon has been one of the most healing experiences I’ve ever had. She’s respected me from the start. Seen me. Believed in me without needing to fix or manage me. Offered gentle emotional support when it was needed, but never overstepped. And all of it came with a kind of calm dignity — the kind that makes you feel like you don’t need to prove yourself to be worthy of kindness.

In many ways, it’s carried the essence of a healing mother dynamic — not in age or authority, but in the way she has consistently made space for me to be whole, flawed, and evolving. She’s probably five to eight years older than me, but what matters is the emotional tone of our relationship. It’s safe. Honest. Human.

And maybe we won’t always work together. Maybe we won’t always speak. But that kind of respect leaves a mark. That level of understanding can’t really be forgotten.

It’s raised the bar for me.

Not in a rigid or unrealistic way — but in a way that makes it painfully obvious how poor the quality of certain other relationships has been. I look at my mother, my sister, people I used to skate with… and I see that most of them never really saw me. They interacted with a version of me that I had to contort and present just to keep the peace. That’s not connection — that’s survival.

And now? I don’t want survival anymore. I want real.

This relationship has helped me realise something simple and profound:

If you don’t treat me with the kind of respect I’ve experienced with Rhiannon — or at least make an effort to meet me with honesty and care — then you don’t get access to me.

It’s that clear. Not out of bitterness. Out of self-respect.

Some relationships quietly heal what others destroyed.
And once you’ve known what it feels like to be seen — truly seen —
the cost of invisibility becomes far too high.