Having written for hours and days about my most vulnerable experiences and feelings in these months of solitude, it is natural that the voice in my head would sound an alarm: “If you write all of this down, you can be easily manipulated.“
Thankfully, I have learned it is actually the opposite. Opening the cellar door stops the house from running on phantom currents buried out of sight.
My protective inner voice is running an outdated security protocol from my childhood. In a family system where speaking reality was penalized as disruption and labeled as aggression, keeping my thoughts unspoken was the only reliable firewall. Whenever I broke down and defended my truth, I was shunned; only when I found the strength to suppress myself behind a happy-face mask could I access even a fraction of the affection I deserved. To a child dependent on unsafe adults, visibility felt lethal; hiding the truth seemed like the only way to avoid handing ammunition to people who would use it against me.
When the controls stay buried in the dark, an external actor hardly has to work. Anyone who mirrors the original wound can plug straight into that unacknowledged wiring, quietly tripping the breaker of self-blame, making me second-guess my sanity, or compelling me to abandon myself just to keep the peace and scraps of regard flowing my way. The ghost of my childhood can only run the house when the controls remain out of my sight and unmapped.
Putting ink to paper drags what was trapped in my nervous system into the light. I am keeping that cellar door kicked wide open. I am directing my empathy toward myself, the very empathy I once liberally gave away to those who required me to maintain their comfort by subordinating mine. In applying empathy to me, I allow myself to recognize and heed the situations that trap me in my childhood survival mode.
There is no one I need in order to survive, like I did, as a child. I can anchor and validate my own existence. I can de-select from my life those who thrive on my compliance with my erasure. I can own not being everyone’s cup of tea. In fact, I can relish finding those who can see me with curiosity and reciprocity, receive me with healthy boundaries, speak directly, and possess the rare courage to actually repair and grow.
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