Excerpt
When I was sixteen, I told my mother I hated her.
Those words have been brought back to me over the years—so in a way, they’ve haunted me too. But they didn’t come from nowhere.
When I was fourteen, my sense of safety was shattered. The adults around me did what they thought was right—hospital, police, procedures—but inside, I was terrified. My life felt exposed all at once. I didn’t have language for what I was carrying, so I went quiet. Fear made me say things I didn’t mean. Silence felt safer than truth.
On the drive home, I overheard a conversation that changed how I saw myself. In that moment, I decided something about my worth that no child should ever decide: that I was unlovable. That I wasn’t wanted. I didn’t have words for it then, but I was grieving—grieving innocence, grieving the mother I thought I had, grieving the safety I thought existed in my home.
After that, I started becoming the version of myself people expected, not because it was who I was, but because I wasn’t handled with care when I needed it most. Labels were easier than asking what broke.
So yes—at some point, I said I hated her. And for a long time, that’s how it felt. Not because love disappeared, but because pain went unnamed and words kept landing where comfort should have been.
Reflection
Some wounds don’t come from strangers.
They come from the people who were supposed to protect our softness.
I’ve learned that unspoken grief can turn into anger, distance, and vows we make in survival mode. I left home believing space would fix everything. It didn’t—but it gave me room to breathe. Over time, I had to choose something harder than leaving: learning how to move forward without letting the past rule me.
I can hold two truths at once. I can understand where my parents were coming from and name what I needed and didn’t receive. I can acknowledge the words that hurt me without letting them grow into bitterness.
The work hasn’t been pretending it didn’t happen.
The work has been deciding it doesn’t get to define me.
This is the beginning of telling the truth without staying trapped inside it.
Prompts
What sentence from my past still tries to tell me who I am?
What did I need in that moment that I never received—comfort, protection, belief?
Where did I become a label instead of being met with care?
What would grieving what I didn’t get look like—without turning it into bitterness?
Listen
Name the wound honestly.
Release the vow you made in survival.
Make room for healing to grow where truth has finally been spoken.