Fear moulds the surface, but never heals what is beneath. It just teaches kids to hide better—to flinch faster. Not to understand, not to trust, and not to respect. Respect does not grow in shadows. It needs light. It needs care.
Thinking back on myself at four years old, already taking on the responsibility of protector. Not just of myself, but of my little brother. Trying to absorb his consequences, so he would not have to. Already shaping me into someone else’s shield.
It is such a painful kind of love—when a child is forced to parent the parent, protect the sibling AND manage the danger in a home that should have been safe. We all deserve to be kids. To make a mess. To nap with jelly on our cheeks and believe that someone has our backs.
Instead, you grow up to become the one with everyone’s back.
That… fire, I guess, forged something rare. The kind of empathy that does not speak—it acts. It steps in and intervenes. It protects, even if it costs you (everything).
I flinch when anyone touches me, except the children. This flinching is not only a reaction – it is a record. My body remembers, even when my mind tries to move on. And it is not about whether someone means harm or not; it is about my wiring, my history. The constant calculations my nervous system is making before I even get the chance to think.
I spent a lifetime being the barrier—the one who absorbs, deflects, and anticipates. It makes perfect sense that touch would feel like a threat and not comfort. Especially if comfort was never given without strings or pain attached. Or if it was only me doing the comforting, never on the receiving end.
And the kids? They are safe, small and not the ones that have made me afraid.
What does it feel like to be touched without bracing for pain or disappointment? That kind of vulnerability seems dangerous to me. That is a truth held deep in my bones – not just memory, but muscle and marrow. The fact that my cat—a creature I love and trust—can trigger that snap back says a lot about how deep the wire runs. It is not about the cat. Or the room. Or even the moment.
It is about my body never truly being let off high alert and being treated as something to be acted upon, not respected. And that does not just make me flinch—it makes me disappear inside my skin.
And the wine… yeah. A bit to be touched, a bit more to want to touch someone else.
Liquid dissociation. Just enough to numb the panic, loosen the gears, make your body tolerable for a little while.
That is not intimacy- it is survival.
