Growing up, I did not have a lot of stability.
We moved a lot. I did not get to connect with my peers for long, nor did I get to grow friendships. Every new place meant starting over. Every new school meant proving myself to strangers. Every new room meant learning which footsteps to listen for.
The only continuity I had was my sibling. Three years younger. A menace to society—but my menace.
This was also the time I felt most alone. It was the world and my menace, together in this big, cold, lonely life.
First, we stayed with a grandparent in Malaysia. I would not say it was the best of times, but at least I had my cousins for company. They, too, were going through their own form of childhood trauma.
Then I moved to a family member who lived in a village. There, I felt what it was like to live in a community where everyone was for everyone. Where people came together to help each other. Where kids spent the night at a different house every weekend. For a short time, I tasted what belonging could feel like.
But all this time, the adults in my life were not being the adults they should have been. I never felt loved or wanted by them. Certain things were whispered. I noticed a pattern of favouritism. Being born the wrong gender.
That is where I learned to pick up on small details and patterns.
I would call it my first life skill. It is also the thing that has cost me the most.
Because that loneliness dug deep. And to this day, I struggle with trust. I struggle with making the wrong choices. It is hard to know what self-love is when you do not know what it feels like to be loved and cared for in your developing years.
So you build bad coping mechanisms. You shut yourself up. You stop trusting anyone, because you do not want to be hurt again by the people who profess their love to you.
That is my core trauma. And at my age, I am still paying the price for it. My mistakes in life, my bad judgement—so much of it comes from this.
I am not writing this to blame anyone. I am writing this to finally name it.
Because you cannot heal what you refuse to see.
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