Becoming My Own Safe Place
Memoir Chapter — raw, embodied, and scene-forward.
I didn’t know to call it safety back then. I only knew what it felt like when it wasn’t there.
I learned early that peace wasn’t something you could count on. It came like weather — unpredictable, temporary — and sometimes it never came at all. I didn’t grow up thinking the world was soft. I grew up thinking the world could turn on you. That the air could change. That tone could shift. That love could disappear without warning.
And my body adapted before my mind ever did.
There were rooms where I never fully rested. I could be sitting down and still feel like I was standing at attention on the inside. I would lie in bed with my jaw clenched so tight it hurt, my shoulders locked, my ears listening for something — anything — that meant I needed to be ready.
Ready for arguing.
Ready for disappointment.
Ready to explain myself.
Ready to survive.
Even in silence, I didn’t trust silence. Silence meant something was coming.
Sometimes I think people misunderstand women like me. They see us as strong, sharp, organized, dependable — the ones who can take a hit and still get up, still show up, still make everything make sense. They don’t see what it costs. They don’t see what’s happening inside. They don’t see that you can be “functioning” and still be drowning.
I didn’t always look like someone who was falling apart.
But I was.
I was carrying too much and calling it normal.
There were days when I felt like my mind was a crowded room and I didn’t have the keys to the doors anymore. Thoughts running through me all day and every day — so many that I couldn’t organize them, couldn’t catch them, couldn’t make them land. The kind of mental chaos that makes you feel helpless, even when you’re capable. Especially when you’re capable.
Because I had always been capable.
The one who could write.
The one who could solve problems.
The one who could be sharp and prepared on a moment’s notice.
So when my brain started slipping — when I couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t speak without pausing to find basic words, couldn’t read without my mind scrambling and substituting things that weren’t there — it felt like betrayal. Like I was losing the very thing that had kept me alive.
I felt scatterbrained, like I was living in a constant state of internal noise and chaos, and no matter what I did, I couldn’t shut it off. I would forget things I had just said. Forget what I did the day before. Forget what I was talking about in the middle of a sentence. I would be having a conversation and suddenly go blank, like someone erased the board in my head.
And there’s a special kind of fear that comes with that — the kind people don’t talk about.
Because it’s not just about forgetting.
It’s about losing the part of yourself you’ve always depended on to survive.
I remember one day sitting on my couch. I didn’t plan for it to be anything. It wasn’t a breakthrough day. It wasn’t a day I woke up feeling inspired. It wasn’t the beginning of some beautiful transformation.
It was just… quiet.
The sliding glass door was open. Not wide open — just enough. Enough for the breeze to move through the house. Enough for air to reach me without asking permission. The fan was on, aimed directly at me, and for a minute I just sat there and let the air brush my skin — cool, steady, clean.
There was no noise. No voices. No demands. No one needing something from me. No tension in the room.
Just stillness.
And what I realized — what hit me without warning — was that my body didn’t know what to do with it at first.
Because I wasn’t bracing.
And not bracing felt… suspicious.
I sat there, and for the first time in a long time, I noticed I wasn’t scanning the room. I wasn’t waiting for the next shoe to drop. I wasn’t preparing my response to something that hadn’t even happened yet.
My breathing slowed on its own.
My hands unclenched.
My stomach stopped twisting for a minute.
I didn’t feel happy.
I felt relieved.
And that relief was so unfamiliar that I almost didn’t recognize it as something good.
That moment didn’t come with fireworks. It didn’t come with a voice that said, This is healing. It wasn’t a dramatic scene where I suddenly understood my whole life.
It was just me, sitting in a quiet house, letting the breeze move through the room… and realizing I was still here. Still alive. Still breathing. Still intact.
And that was enough.
I think what people don’t understand about safety is this:
Safety doesn’t always feel like comfort.
Sometimes safety feels like absence.
Absence of noise.
Absence of fear.
Absence of being needed.
It’s the first moment your body believes it can stop performing survival.
And I didn’t have many of those moments.
So I held onto that one.
Not with my hands.
With my nervous system.
After that, I started noticing things. Not the kind of noticing that makes you feel enlightened — but the kind that makes you see your life differently.
I started realizing how often I was apologizing for existing.
How often I was explaining myself like I owed people reasons.
How often I was putting everyone else first and calling it love.
And if I’m being honest… I didn’t do that because I was kind.
I did it because I was scared.
Scared that if I didn’t prove my worth, I’d be abandoned.
Scared that if I wasn’t useful, I wouldn’t be loved.
So I stayed over-functioning.
I stayed over-explaining.
I stayed in the habit of making myself smaller so other people could stay comfortable.
And I didn’t realize how much that was killing me.
That quiet house moment didn’t change everything.
But it did something more important.
It introduced me to the idea that I could be with myself and not fall apart.
That I could sit in stillness and survive it.
That I could be alone and not unravel.
And that’s when I started understanding something I didn’t have words for yet:
Maybe safety wasn’t something I was supposed to find in other people.
Maybe safety was something I had to build.
Inside myself.
I didn’t become my own safe place overnight. I didn’t wake up healed. I didn’t stop having bad days. I didn’t suddenly become gentle with myself.
I still had chaos inside me. I still had fear. I still had days when I couldn’t get off the couch — days when my brain felt like Windows 95 with no extra memory slots and nowhere to put what I needed to function.
But I did start doing something different.
I started staying.
Even when I wanted to disappear.
Even when I wanted to distract myself.
Even when I wanted to make the feeling go away.
I stayed.
And that was the beginning.
Not a rescue.
Not a miracle.
Just a quiet choice:
I’m not leaving myself.
Flashback: Learning to Be the One Who Watches
Before I knew how to be afraid for myself, I knew how to be afraid for other people.
I learned that early — in the house where raised voices meant danger, and silence meant waiting. I learned it watching my mother move through rooms carefully, reading moods the way some people read weather. I learned it standing close to my sister, feeling responsible for her before I was old enough to understand why.
There were moments when the air changed.
Not loudly. Not dramatically.
Just enough.
Enough to make my stomach tighten. Enough to make my body lean forward, alert. Enough to make me listen harder.
I learned to track footsteps, tones, the way doors closed.
I learned when to stay out of the way and when to step in.
I learned how to make myself small — and when that didn’t work, how to become invisible.
I didn’t have language for what was happening. I only knew that things could turn quickly, and when they did, no one was coming to protect us.
So I did what children do when they realize the adults aren’t safe.
- I watched.
- I stayed aware.
- I stayed ready.
I learned how to sense when something was about to go wrong and adjust myself accordingly. I learned how to hold my breath emotionally, how to keep my feelings quiet so they wouldn’t make anything worse. I learned how to carry fear without letting it show — because showing it didn’t change anything.
I remember wanting to fix things I couldn’t fix.
Wanting to make it stop.
Wanting to be old enough, strong enough, loud enough to change the outcome.
But mostly, I remember learning this truth without anyone ever saying it out loud:
If I don’t stay alert, something bad could happen.
And once that belief settles into a child’s body, it doesn’t leave easily.
That way of living followed me.
It followed me into relationships where I felt responsible for other people’s emotions.
Into friendships where I stayed quiet to keep the peace.
Into spaces where I could sense tension before anyone admitted it existed.
I became good at holding things together.
I became good at anticipating needs.
I became good at staying composed when things were falling apart.
And people called that strength.
But what it really was… was survival.
Because when you grow up learning that safety is fragile, you don’t relax.
- You monitor.
- You manage.
- You brace.
- You stay ready — not just for yourself, but for everyone around you.
And that’s exhausting.
So when I sat on that couch years later — the sliding door open, the breeze moving through the room, the fan steady against my skin — it wasn’t just relief I felt.
It was unfamiliar.
Because nothing in me was needed.
No one needed watching.
No one needed protecting.
No one needed me to be ready.
For the first time, I wasn’t responsible for what might happen next.
And my body didn’t know what to do with that.
That quiet didn’t erase what I had lived through.
But it showed me something I had never been allowed to believe:
That I didn’t have to stay on guard forever.
That safety didn’t have to be earned by vigilance.
That I didn’t have to be the one who watches anymore.
And that was the beginning.
Pause Here (Optional)
If this chapter stirred something in you, you don’t have to rush past it.
- Where in your life have you learned to brace — even when nothing is happening?
- What does “safety” feel like in your body when it’s real?
- If you stopped abandoning yourself… what would change first?