People like me struggle to open up. Whether you were always told you weren’t good enough, you were being dramatic and it really wasn’t that bad. Be it that everything would be better here if you just sat down, didn’t speak or cry. Accepted that although you are just a little human who wants to explore, you sometimes make a mess and always needs to rely on someone. You’re an inconvenience to the life your parent once had.

Then we fast forward, to being an adult. We’re in the big wide world where you have to trust the right people. You need the right friends. Ones to love and support you and to continue the work that your parents put in, moulding you to the person you are.

But what if you weren’t moulded by a parent’s unconditional love and understanding? You didn’t go to sleep every night knowing you were loved, in fact you prayed it would be better tomorrow. You weren’t kept safe enough to learn the dangers of the world, because you spent your childhood exhausting your nervous system trying to keep yourself safe. So then you choose the wrong friends. The ones who you can never trust with the thoughts inside your head. Instead you mask it. You change everything about yourself on the sole basis of making that person happy. You appear to be having a great time. No one notices the anxiety you are riddled with because you’ve spent your whole life hiding them, knowing if you showed them there’d be consequences.

All of this time in more toxic environments make the wounds they left open deeper and deeper. You then get into a relationship. Not a loving, stable environment, but a toxic, one with a narcissist. From the outside in everything looks fine. On the inside you are fading away, frightened and looking for support. Who better to talk to than your mum right? The person whose one main role is to give unconditional love? But what if that person is also a narcissist, that has done everything this man is doing to you, just in a different dynamic?

You break. Then you try to escape. But the guilt that has built up over the years of being convinced that everything is your fault makes you easily guilt tripped. The words twist around your limbs and sink your feet into the ground. But keep going, I promise you can get back up without them.

You have to work on yourself, fake it until you make it. But the reality of it is, you fake it, until it really breaks you. Then as a mum of two, that is devoted to correcting every negative parenting habit that was forced onto you, you have no choice but to pick every single piece back up, and figure out how to put it back together again.

Doesn’t sound pleasant, especially throwing in the two children that you are now a single parent to. Not one bit of coparenting in sight. Just continuous abuse and manipulation tactics from afar. You were alone.

Then life changed. You met your person. The one that does love you unconditionally. Who understands, accepts and nurtures everything about you. The one willing to support you through the unpacking of every bit of trauma. Watching you break to a point you have to accept defeat and ask for support, despite spending your whole life independent.

You are programmed to please people. And all of a sudden, you’re too poorly both mentally and physically to do it. Your children have only ever been supported by you, no stable grandparents, aunties, uncles or family friends. Just occasional visits and unhealthy atmospheres. But most of all silence.

They now have to accept that some days, mummy can’t walk to take them to school. Your new incredible support system, your person and his family can’t help enough. They love helping and nurturing. But your children, they are just children. Children that have had no choice but to know how to solely rely on you. They have never been taught to trust others, because there hasn’t been anyone to trust. Yes, there were family contacts and occasional meets, but never any regular contact.

They’re anxious. I feel their anxiety in the same way I used to feel my mums mood changes, piercing through my chest. It triggers me. It makes me feel as though I’m doing to them exactly what she did to me. I reassure them they are safe and supported through my own voices of doubt and distrust.

My brain is trying to keep me safe by reminding me what happened the last time I trusted someone to love me. But I know it’s different this time. I feel it in every part of my being. Life from the outside is pretty amazing, grounded me is happy, she’s content. My brain who has been blindly trying to guide me through these relationships using only feelings and thoughts is now struggling. It can’t understand how we’re supposed to be happy.

How can we be happy and loved when our thoughts don’t match our feelings. Hearing a noise at night has me holding my breath in silence, listening to the noise to see if I’m in danger. My chest burns and I freeze, frightened. It was a cat. How silly? Yet completely out of my control. My heart is still pounding and I can feel the blood rushing in my head. It’s okay it was just a cat remember. But it could have been anything couldn’t it. Everything sounds loud whilst you’re trying to listen, to see if you can still hear it. Has it got closer? Is it shouting? Now I look to my right, and the love of my life looks me in my eyes and asks if I’m okay.

Am I ok? How do I answer a question that I don’t know the answer to? I could say I don’t know. Or shrug. Or smile and say it’s nothing I’m okay. But this man loves me. He knows what my eyes mean, he reads them probably better than you’re reading this now. I’m unable to say any words that make sense to someone who could never imagine the directions my thoughts spiral in.

I see the pain in his eyes of wanting so desperately to help me, we have no clue where to start. The cycle of the guilt I feel inside starts again, my brain feels like the burden, that ruined my mums life. The blood continues gushing round my head and my heart . I tell myself he only cares and in my head I imagine what reason he will give for leaving me. Let’s face it, everyone else has, why wouldn’t he?

He wouldn’t because he loves me.

People who were never traumatised can never imagine how we think, because our brains only work the way they do, because of the trauma.

A bus driver can’t drive a helicopter just because he drives a bus. Yes they have their own brain, own heart, own opinion and understanding, but that does not make them a professional in how yours works. Especially if they come from a safe background with very little trauma. It is not an easy concept to get anyone’s head around because honestly, how can someone appear completely happy and strong one day, and the next they don’t want to get out of bed? The next they can’t see one bit of value that they bring to life.