I was born into absence. Not into poverty, not into physical violence, but into a silence that shaped everything I later became. There was a house, there were adults, there were routines… but there was no soft place to land. No arms that held me without conditions. No voice that asked, “How do you feel?”

Instead, there were expectations: be good, be quiet, be helpful. Love was a test I had to pass by sacrificing myself. If I loved my mother, I had to take care of her needs when I was only four. If I loved my family, I had to disappear when my presence became inconvenient. I was never hit, but I was unseen. I was never starved, but I was hollow.

I remember sitting by the window, dressed up, waiting for my father’s car to pull up. But I waited in vain… he didn’t come. The excuses were shallow. I felt forgotten and hurt. My grandmother would sneer and say that even my father didn’t care about me. She was also the one who told me I was not worth the air I was breathing… a waste of skin. My mother was too numb, too caught up in her illness to protect me.

Later, I learned my father couldn’t bring together the family he had left and the one he chose next. He didn’t know how… probably because of guilt. But none of that softened the silence he left behind. His absence was louder than words. I learned early that love could leave. That silence was safer than asking for more. That presence didn’t guarantee anything. That fear never fully disappeared. I still carry it… the fear of being too much, of being left, of not being enough to stay for.

There were days I wanted to disappear. Not dramatically. Just… fade. I often wondered if anyone would notice. Or care. I didn’t feel real unless I was needed. And when I wasn’t, I disappeared into myself. There were no diagnoses, no interventions. Just a little girl carrying grief that wasn’t hers. Until I was seven years old, I barely spoke to anyone outside my immediate family. I was silent at school, silent among strangers. It wasn’t shyness. It was something deeper… a sense that my voice didn’t matter, or that it wasn’t safe to use. No one did anything about it. No one felt the need to find out why I didn’t speak. And so I learned early that my silence was more acceptable than my presence.

I could have vanished. I could have become numb. I could have chased oblivion and found comfort in destruction. I didn’t. I chose a harder path.

I chose presence.

Not because I had help. I didn’t. I had three therapy sessions and one blister of medication. That was in 2019, when I was 36, proof that some wounds linger long before we name them. I couldn’t talk about what hurt because my voice was locked somewhere inside my chest. I survived not through intervention, but through instinct.

I wrote. I bled into pages. I listened to music like it was scripture. I held myself in the night when no one else would. And somehow, through all of it, I also held others. Quietly. Faithfully. Unrecognised.

And when I asked for help… on the rare occasion I reached out, raw and exposed… I was told to get professional help. As if all my self-healing, all the decades of surviving without imploding, meant nothing. As if I were still the damaged one. Maybe the idea of my wholeness makes some people uncomfortable… maybe they need me to stay small.

But I am not damaged.

I am someone who turned silence into language. Who turned emotional starvation into fierce love. Who broke cycles instead of repeating them. I am a mother who gives what she never received. I am a teacher who sees the invisible children. I am a woman who carries her contradictions with grace.

There are still parts of me I don’t often speak about. I used to hurt myself. Quietly. It gave shape to the ache I couldn’t explain. Pain made me feel real when nothing else did. I never hid it, but no one ever asked. I stopped, eventually… replaced the blade with a pen. But the memory of those moments still lives under my skin.

And there are moments, even now, when I am struggling. When I am thinking about how easy it would be to numb my fears and pain with a blade against my skin. Just once. Sweet relief. But I don’t. So far, I have been able to resist that temptation.

Sometimes, even now, anxiety sneaks in. My heart races. My breath shortens. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, I recognise it. I let it pass. I stay with it now. I don’t run. That’s how I know I’ve changed.

There is still fear. Still sadness. Still those days when I feel like I’m unravelling. But I am not ashamed of them anymore. They are not signs of failure. They are the soft reminders that I have depth, that I survived, that I still feel.

I once said, “Despite it all, I turned out quite normal.” Someone laughed and said, “With all due respect, you are not normal.” And they were right. I am not. I am not numb. I am not simple. I am not easy.

I am still here in the quietest, most enduring ways. My husband has been part of that quiet. His support isn’t loud or showy, and we don’t speak about most of what’s written here… by my choice, but he is there in the small things. In the steadiness. In the way he leaves space for me to be as I am. That matters more than he knows.

I feel deeply and live honestly. I want to be seen… not to be saved, but to be seen simply as the person I am. And even when I fear I’m too much, I overthink and retreat. I quiet myself before anyone else can. I try not to take up space. But deep down, I still hope someone might see me and not turn away.

I turned from absence to presence by refusing to disappear. I stitched myself together with poems, small victories, and the decision to keep loving… even when it hurt. Even when it was not returned. Even when it would have been easier to break.

This is who I became: not someone untouched by trauma… but someone who made meaning out of it. Not someone who pretends to be okay… but someone who is okay because she stopped pretending.

I am not broken. I am whole… in all my layers. And I did it myself. And I am still becoming.

If you’re reading this during Mental Health Awareness Month and wondering if your story matters… it does. Even in silence. Even in struggle. Even when no one sees the work you’re doing just to stay. You are not alone.

Thank you for being part of my present.