I didn’t choose this life.
As a child, I didn’t choose fear. I didn’t choose silence. I didn’t choose pain that wore the disguise of “discipline” or the confusion that came with being unloved by the very person who was supposed to protect me.

Each day of my childhood felt like walking through a minefield.
I learned early to hide behind walls, behind doors, behind the stillness of my breath. I became an expert at reading danger before it spoke. I memorised escape routes and silences.

My mother never gave me hugs, warmth, or love. She gave me bruises and words sharp enough to leave invisible scars.
So I grew up not understanding love.
Not understanding kindness.
I thought it was normal to be beaten.
Normal to hide from your parent.
Normal to be sexually abused by a sibling.

Normal to live in fear.

When you grow up like that, your world becomes very small.
I thought hopelessness was just another household routine like meals or sleep. I thought saying “yes” to everyone, even when it hurt, was what girls were meant to do.
I thought obedience was safety.

But it wasn’t. It was survival.

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There were darker things too the kind of pain a child should never have to carry, the kind that steals your innocence before you even know what the word means.
And I was taught not to resist, not to question, and not to cry too loudly.
To agree.
Always agree.

For years, I believed it was my fault. That maybe I had done something to deserve it. That maybe if I just stayed quiet enough, good enough, invisible enough—it would all stop.

It never did.

From That Girl Who Is Learning To Smile
For the ones who never got to choose their pain, but are now choosing their healing. 🌙