From the moment I was born, I was labeled dramatic, emotional, oversensitive.
My entrance into this world was traumatic. My mother and I nearly died during my birth. And from those very first moments, life began teaching me something that would take decades to unlearn. That it wasn't safe to feel. That my emotions were too much. That being fully me was unlovable.
I grew up in a household where feelings were controlled and repressed. Where perfection was the goal and my big emotions were the problem. I was the sensitive one. The dramatic one. The one who always felt too much, saw too much, knew too much, and learned early on that the world didn't have room for all of it.
So I adapted. I over-gave. I over-explained. I made myself smaller to stay connected. I built a version of myself that could function, capable, strong, high-achieving, while underneath I was slowly abandoning the girl who just needed to be held in her truth.
By my early twenties I had already experienced more than most people carry in a lifetime. Abuse. Shame. Violation. A body that had learned to brace against feeling because feeling had never felt safe. I wore achievement and independence like armour and they worked, right up until they didn't.
