My Story

My earliest understanding of safety came from resilient women, while instability and vigilance were learned elsewhere. From an early age, I learned to read people, sense danger, and understand where I did — and didn’t — belong.

School quickly became a place of fear rather than learning. Sustained bullying, mislabelling, and institutional failure pushed survival ahead of education, reinforcing silence and shame instead of support.

At home, emotional abuse replaced physical violence. Words were repeated until they became internalised, shaping identity, self-worth, and the instinct to disappear rather than resist.

As queerness and difference were closely monitored and punished, silence became discipline and self-editing became protection. Vigilance hardened into habit, following me into adulthood.

Leaving home did not mean leaving damage behind. Patterns repeated across relationships, work, and self-perception, offering moments of escape but no real relief.

Being written off — by schools, systems, and labels — reinforced the belief that I was broken rather than unsupported. Dyslexia, expulsion, and neglect deepened that narrative, even as something in me refused to disappear.

What began as journalling to understand my present life became a deliberate act of remembering. Returning to my earliest memories revealed how deeply the past continued to shape who I became.

Healing, I learned, is not about erasing what happened. It is about reclaiming authorship — choosing how to live with the past, and how the story continues.