Escaping the Shadows of Childhood Abuse

I used to think my father’s anger was normal. That all fathers yelled, that all little girls walked on eggshells, measuring every breath to avoid setting something off. I learned early that silence was safer than speaking, that obedience meant survival. His words—sharp, unforgiving—cut deeper than the bruises ever did. I carried them into adulthood without even realizing it.

At twenty-eight, I had a good job, an apartment filled with houseplants and books, and friends who laughed at my jokes. But inside, I was still that small, invisible girl, waiting for someone to tell me who I was supposed to be. Every relationship I entered was tinged with fear. I shrank myself to keep the peace. I apologized for existing. I was drawn to men with cold eyes and sharp words because that was what love had always felt like.

The wake-up call came in the form of a six-year-old girl.

My niece, Emily, was playing with her dolls one afternoon while I was babysitting. She spilled her juice on the floor, and before I even thought about it, I snapped at her—sharp, biting, the same tone my father used on me. She flinched. Not just a startled jump, but a full-body shrink, her shoulders curling inward, her little hands gripping the hem of her shirt.

I saw myself in that moment. I saw my own childhood, the way I cowered when my father’s voice rose. I had spent my whole life running from him, only to become an echo of him.

I sat down beside her and apologized. I told her it was okay, that I wasn’t mad, that she wasn’t bad. She nodded, but I knew that kind of flinch doesn’t come from nowhere. I saw her mother—my sister—take the same posture around her husband. The cycle wasn’t just repeating in me. It was threading through our family, generation after generation. And I knew, then and there, that if I didn’t break it, Emily might one day snap at her own child the same way.

That night, I made a choice.

Healing wasn’t easy. The first time I walked into a therapist’s office, my hands trembled so badly I had to sit on them. Saying the words out loud—I was abused—felt like betrayal. I had spent my life protecting my father’s image, minimizing his actions, making excuses for him. But the truth, once spoken, didn’t crush me the way I feared it would. It set something free.

I learned about trauma responses, about why I apologized so much, why I felt like I had to earn love through suffering. I learned that I wasn’t broken—just conditioned to believe I was.

Therapy was only part of it. I started journaling, writing letters to the child I had been, telling her she was safe now, that she wasn’t alone. I read books on reparenting, on how to give myself the love I never received. I surrounded myself with people who spoke softly, who didn’t make me feel small.

The hardest part was forgiveness—not for my father, but for myself. For all the ways I had allowed his voice to live inside me. For the times I had hurt others because I didn’t know any better.

Years later, I still catch myself flinching at raised voices. I still have days where I wonder if I am worthy of kindness. But I am not that scared little girl anymore. I am a woman who fought her way out of the past.

And I refuse to pass that pain down to anyone else.