They Taught Me to Fear the Things That Were Supposed to Feel Safe

There are parts of my story I can tell casually.

I can joke about my bad decisions.

I can laugh about my chaos.

I can turn heartbreak into dark humor and trauma into something sarcastic enough that nobody realizes how badly it actually fucking hurt.

But there are other parts of my story that still feel different when I say them out loud.

Parts that aren’t funny.

Parts that explain why I am the way I am more than almost anything else ever could.

So if you’ve ever wondered why I struggle to trust people…

Why I question someone’s intentions even when they’re being good to me…

Why reassurance means so much to me.

Why I can desperately want love and simultaneously be fucking terrified of it.

Why sometimes being vulnerable feels like handing someone a loaded weapon and praying they don’t eventually use it against me…

This is part of the reason.

Because some of my earliest lessons about love, trust, intimacy, and safety weren’t lessons anyone should ever have to learn.

The First Boy I Ever Dated Taught Me That Love Could Hurt

Your first relationship is supposed to be awkward.

You’re supposed to learn how relationships work.

How to communicate.

How to kiss someone without wondering what the fuck you’re doing.

How it feels to have somebody choose you.

I learned something different.

The first guy I ever dated abused me.

And when I say abused me, I don’t mean we had a “toxic relationship.”

I don’t mean we fought too much.

I mean abuse.

In every way someone can slowly teach another human being that they aren’t safe.

He was supposed to be my introduction to romantic love.

Instead, he became my introduction to survival.

And that’s a fucked-up foundation to build the rest of your relationships on.

Because when someone hurts you while telling you they love you, your brain starts connecting two things that should never have been connected.

Love and fear.

Affection and danger.

Apologies and pain.

“I love you” and “I’m sorry.”

Eventually, chaos starts feeling familiar.

And years later, when someone actually treats you gently, part of you doesn’t know what the fuck to do with it.

Because you’re waiting.

Waiting for the switch.

Waiting for the punishment.

Waiting for the version of them that hurts you to finally show up.

People sometimes wonder why survivors struggle to accept healthy love.

Maybe it’s because some of us were taught what love was by people who never should have been allowed to define it for us.

Then Someone Who Was Supposed to Be Family Took Something From Me Too

There are certain people you’re automatically taught are safe.

Family is supposed to be one of them.

You’re supposed to believe there are boundaries certain people would never cross.

Until someone does.

A family member sexually assaulted me.

Even writing that sentence makes something inside me feel strange.

Because there’s an entirely different kind of betrayal when the person who violates you is connected to the very word that’s supposed to mean belonging.

Family.

How do you explain what that does to someone’s understanding of safety?

Where exactly are you supposed to feel safe when someone who was supposed to be part of your safe place becomes another person you needed protection from?

It changes something.

It teaches you that familiarity doesn’t equal safety.

That knowing someone doesn’t mean you know what they’re capable of.

That sharing blood, history, holidays, memories, or a last name doesn’t automatically make somebody trustworthy.

And suddenly the world feels a little less safe than it did before.

And Then It Happened Again.

You’d think surviving sexual assault once would somehow satisfy whatever cruel fucking quota the universe apparently has.

It didn’t.

Two other men raped me.

Two separate human beings made the decision that what they wanted mattered more than my autonomy.

More than my boundaries.

More than my body.

More than me.

And there’s something especially difficult about surviving something more than once.

Because eventually you stop only asking:

Why did they do this?

And you start asking:

Why does this keep happening to me?

That’s where the shame sneaks in.

That’s where your brain becomes cruel.

Maybe I should’ve known.

Maybe I trusted too easily.

Maybe I should’ve seen something.

Maybe I shouldn’t have been there.

Maybe I should’ve fought harder.

Maybe.

Maybe.

Maybe.

You can torture yourself with that word forever.

But none of those questions change the one thing that matters:

They made those choices.

My existence wasn’t permission.

My trust wasn’t permission.

My relationship with someone wasn’t permission.

My past wasn’t permission.

Being nice wasn’t permission.

Caring about someone wasn’t permission.

Nothing about being me gave another person ownership of my body.

But Trauma Doesn’t Stay Where It Happened

That’s something people don’t always understand.

The event ends.

Your body survives.

Time passes.

Everybody expects life to continue.

But trauma is a fucking thief.

It follows you home.

It climbs into relationships that had absolutely nothing to do with the person who originally hurt you.

It sits beside you when somebody says, “Trust me.”

It whispers in your ear when somebody promises they’re different.

It makes you analyze tone changes, facial expressions, silence, distance, affection.

It makes you search for danger in places where there may not be any.

It can make you crave reassurance and then question whether the reassurance is genuine.

It can make you want somebody desperately and then panic the second they get close enough to actually matter.

And then you feel guilty.

Because this person didn’t hurt you.

So why are they paying for what somebody else did?

That’s one of the hardest things I’ve had to understand about myself.

Sometimes I’m not reacting to the person standing in front of me.

I’m reacting to every person standing behind them.

So Yes, Loving Me Can Be Complicated.

I wish I could say I walked away from everything I’ve survived completely untouched.

I didn’t.

There are scars nobody can see.

There are survival mechanisms that probably look irrational from the outside.

There are moments when my brain expects abandonment before anyone has actually left.

There are moments when I need reassurance more than I want to admit.

There are moments when I overthink something harmless because experience taught me that sometimes the smallest warning signs came before something much worse.

And sometimes I hate that.

Sometimes I look at myself and wonder who I would’ve been if people hadn’t hurt me.

Would I trust easier?

Would I love differently?

Would I stop questioning whether I’m enough?

Would I know how to relax when someone loves me instead of wondering when they’re going to change their mind?

Would I stop waiting for the fucking catch?

I’ll never know.

And maybe that’s another thing trauma steals:

The version of yourself you might have become without it.

But Here’s What They Didn’t Take.

Me.

And God knows they fucking tried.

Different people took pieces.

One taught me to associate love with pain.

One destroyed a boundary that should’ve been sacred.

Two others violated something that was never theirs to take.

And for years, I’ve carried consequences for decisions they made.

But I’m still here.

Not perfectly healed.

Not magically fearless.

Not pretending that surviving something automatically means you’ve conquered every consequence of it.

I’m still learning.

Still untangling love from fear.

Still learning that someone’s kindness doesn’t automatically come with conditions.

Still learning that I can say no without explaining myself.

Still learning that my body belongs to me.

Still learning that being loved shouldn’t require me to suffer first.

Still learning that I don’t have to apologize for the survival mechanisms I developed when I was simply trying to make it through things I never should have experienced.

So Before You Ask Why I’m Guarded…

Understand that my walls weren’t built because I enjoy keeping people out.

They were built because people I trusted kept finding ways to hurt me once I let them in.

Before you call me difficult for needing reassurance, understand that I’ve heard beautiful words from people who later became nightmares.

Before you wonder why I analyze someone’s intentions, understand that I’ve learned the devastating difference between what somebody says they are and what they can actually become.

Before you ask why being vulnerable scares the absolute shit out of me, understand that vulnerability hasn’t always been treated gently in my life.

And before you ever mistake my softness for weakness…

Understand something else.

After everything that has happened to me, I am still fucking soft.

I still love.

I still care deeply.

I still believe people can be good.

I still want to find something healthy and real.

I still give pieces of myself to people even though experience has given me every fucking reason to lock them away permanently.

Do you understand how much strength that takes?

I could’ve let them turn me cold.

Sometimes I almost wish they had.

It would’ve been easier.

Instead, somehow, underneath the trauma, anger, fear, dark humor, trust issues, and walls…

There’s still a woman who wants to love and be loved.

They changed me.

I won’t lie and say they didn’t.

There are things I’m still healing that nobody sees.

But they do not get to write the ending of my story.

They don’t get my future.

They don’t get every relationship that comes after them.

They don’t get to decide whether I ever feel safe again.

And they sure as fuck don’t get to convince me that what they did somehow made me less worthy of being loved.

So when you meet the woman behind the chaos and wonder why she loves fiercely, fears deeply, overthinks relentlessly, protects herself instinctively, and still somehow keeps opening her heart…

Remember:

You are meeting someone who had every reason in the world to stop believing that people could be safe.

And somehow…

she’s still trying.