๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐โฆ
I think the saddest realisation of adulthood is when you finally understand that 'I don't have it as bad as others' was just a way of rationalising trauma that you didn't have the words for.
I never grew up thinking I had toxic parents, I didn't grow up thinking that my home was an unsafe place. I didn't grow up believing that the way my body reacted to conflict meant anything deeper.
But something's shifted in me. It's not a loud revelation, not an explosive moment, it's just this quiet, devastating clarity.
I have toxic parents. They're not violent, not physically abusive or stereotypically monstrous. Just...emotionally unsafe. They're unpredictable, completely lacking in boundaries, triggering, projecting and unable to see me unless I am performing productivity or misery for their appeasement.
That type of toxicity leaves bruises that no-one else can see.
My house has always been a place where everything is fine until my existence inconveniences someone, or where laughter is allowed until it becomes "too much", where too much rest is suspicious, where joy is a signal of impending doom. A place where the slightest reminder of my humanity becomes a reason to question my discipline, my future and my priorities.
I live in a house where my parents "push" me to succeed, but weaponise my failures the moment they start to feel a lack of control. The irony is almost comical. The very people who want me to become something are the same ones whose behaviour makes me want to escape so badly that I study until my eyes burn.
They're scared of me failing, but they're the ones who make me feel like my failures and shortcomings are tattooed on my skin.
I've spent years being hyperaware of their moods. I've learned to read the tone of a sigh before a word is even spoken. I've learned to predict when love will turn to interrogation. I've learned to brace myself before answering questions that should've been gentle. I've learned to swallow my emotions because expressing them only invites critique, not comfort.
I've learned that in this house, the only time I'm seen is when I'm slipping.
But the very worst part is the emotional aftershock, the way they pretend nothing happened the next morning. The way they casually talk as if my tears disappeared with the sunrise. The way I have to carry the memory of their words and implications alone.
The rage that builds when they act normal, the silent hatred, the ache in my chest when I realise that I will never receive an apology. It's the kind of pain that shapes your adulthood without consent.
Yesterday, when everything inside me cracked open, I walked down the hallway to my sister's room, the only person in this house who sees me, the only one who doesn't require performance, the only one who doesn't need me to be suffering in order to believe I'm trying.
I broke down in her arms, shaking, hyperventilating, exhausted because for the first time in the aftermath, I could fall apart without being punished or questioned.
I've always known she's the only true safe space in this house, but the second has had my heart for about six months now, my boyfriend, the one who loves me gently, consistently and quietly, one of the few people in my circle who calms my panic instead of causing it, the one who never uses my vulnerability against me. The one who listens to the worst parts of my mind and holds them with tenderness and care. The one who's love feels like what family should always have been.
This contrast hurts.
There's something hopeful about this clarity though. I feel as though for the first time, the fog is lifting. I can see my future more clearly than ever. I can see why I cling to my education so fiercely. I can see why I fight so hard to pass my modules and why leaving this house is not just a want anymore, but a necessity.
My degree is my exit strategy. My studies are my lifeline. Every note, every assignment, every class are bricks in the foundation of the life I'm building away from here.
I'm not studying to make them proud anymore, I'm studying to save myself.
I'm healing, slowly, perfectly and imperfectly, from a home that taught me how to survive...barely, but never taught me how to feel safe.
I'm healing from parents who confuse control with care, from years of emotional unpredictability, Iโm healing from the silence after the damage, and from the apologies that never came. Iโm healing from the expectations that I must always โmove onโ, even when they were the ones that broke me.
And somewhere in the mess of all this, I am realising that I am proud of myself. Not in the glossy, Instagram way, not in the โlook how far Iโve comeโ kind of way, but in the quiet, painful and private way that comes from knowing that I dragged myself out of places that I thought I would die in.
Because the truth is, I saved myself long before anyone ever realised I needed saving, long before I was rotting in my bedroom, waking up at 5pm, but from the days I had to choose not to kill myself every single day, from the days I was reckless with medicine, prayed to God over and over again to end my life for me, so I didntโ have to deal with the guilt of doing it myself. I picked myself up from rock bottom when I could barely lift my head. I crawled out of depressive holes without a guide, without a hand, without softness. I taught myself how to keep going when my mind was begging me to stop.
And yet somehow, even now after clawing my way back to life, back into education, back into myself, my existence is still picked apart.
I still feel guilty for being depressed, guilty for being anxious, guilty for having trauma responses that I never asked for, guilty for not being able to switch off the shame and paralysis that rooted themselves in me long before adulthood began.
I am punished for who I used to be, even though I am not that girl anymore, I am not the girl who hid in fictional words because real life felt too heavy to inhabit. Iโm no longer the girl who spent hours gaming just to avoid the sound of my own thoughts. I am not the girl who lived online because the girl offline was drowning quietly.
I fought to grow, I fought to stand, I fought to choose life again. I fought to choose myself, when nobody else did.
And yet somehow the punishment still lingers, as if Iโm forever indebted to the version of me that didnโt know how to cope. As if healing erases the wound from their memory, but not the resentment.
What cuts deep is the expectation to carry their triggers too.
As if my anxiety is not enough, my depression, not enough. As if fighting my own darkness every single day isnโt enough labour.
My parents project every fear, every insecurity, every uncomfortable emotion onto me and expect me to hold it, absorb it, understand it, regulate it, while nobody holds me.
I am expected to perform stability for them while barely holding myself together. I am expected to soothe their worries even as mine consumes me. I am expected to reassure them that I wonโt fall apart while I am quietly stitching myself together in the dark.
Itโs unfair.
Itโs exhausting.
Itโs a burden that no child should ever carry.
And the cruelest part is coming to terms with the fact that in their minds, I will always be on the verge of failure, always one step away from disaster, always the child theyโre waiting to be disappointed by.
No matter how much I grow, how much I heal, how much I try, they still look at me through the lens of who I used to be.
Their anxiety paints me as unstable, their fear paints me as unreliable, their projections paint me as a ticking time bomb.
To them, success is temporary, progress is fragile and I am a risk.
I know this because even when my mum apologised the other day, a soft emotional apology for โall the times she has ever hurt usโ, it felt like a script, like a performance she knew she could give, but not something she actually intended to uphold, because the very next emotional storm came without hesitation, the very next trigger became my responsibility, the very next hurt was brushed aside as though her apology erased her capacity to cause pain.
My dad is another story entirely, he doesnโt apologise, he doesnโt reflect, he never acknowledges the emotional damage he leaves in his wake, his version of accountability is simply behaving as though the injury never happened, as though silence is resolution, as though pretending is equal to healing.
Their idea of an apology is amnesia. The idea of moving forward is rewinding the moment until only I remember it, their idea of love is control wrapped as concern.
And Iโm realising, painfully and honestly, that I will never get the accountability that I crave. I will never receive the apology my inner child still aches for. I will never be seen the way Iโve fought to see myself.
Iโm not saying anything here that isnโt familiar to every African child who grew up carrying the emotional weight of their entire household. This is the African child tax, being the emotional sponge, the proof of โgood parentingโ, the walking report card, the insurance policy for their reputation, the emotional caretaker for adults who refuse to do any of the work. Itโs a tale as old as time, broken people raising children they were not prepared or equipped to love gently, repairing wounds they never healed from, passing down trauma like inheritance.
And yes, we understand the psychology behind it. We understand the generational wounds, we understand that they never learned the skills. But understanding it doesnโt make it hurt any less.
Why is my empathy expected to stretch far enough to excuse their harm, but their empathy canโt stretch an inch to acknowledge mine? Why am I expected to understand their triggers, but they refuse to even name mine?
Why must I carry every weight they hand me, while they drop every responsibility the moment it becomes uncomfortable?
Why am I the one who must always be the bigger person in a house where Iโm the smallest one emotionally?
Iโm writing this because if I donโt the weight on my chest will crush me. Because every time I swallow the pain, it grows teeth. Because I need an outlet before the resentment spills out of my mouth in ways that I canโt take back.
And maybe, the ugliest truth, the one that stings the most, is that part of me really is beginning to accept that they will never change. Not because they donโt love me but because they genuinely do not have the emotional bandwidth to do better. They never learned how to apologise, how to reflect, how to take accountability, how to see a child outside of fears and expectations.
So Iโm slowly learning to accept things that they cannot give. Iโm learning that I wonโt get healing from the people that caused the wounds. Iโm learning that I donโt have to nurture a relationship that keeps harming me.
And whatโs left is this quiet, almost frightening conviction: I donโt desire closeness with them anymore. I donโt want to be vulnerable with them. I donโt want to share the soft parts of my life with them. I donโt want to tiptoe, performing daughterhood like a role I literally never auditioned for.
I wantโฆthe bare minimum.
Good morning.
Good night.
Basic respect.
Functional coexistence.
Nothing more, nothing extra, nothing that requires emotional exposure.
And hereโs the part that almost feels cruel to admit.
Itโs funny to me the way they dream of grandkids, how they talk about them with excitement, softness, imagination, softness they have never extended to me.
They picture themselves as doting, gentle, warm. And yet, I am the one who grew up with unpredictability, chaos, like living in a minefield. I am the one who swallowed tears so they could sleep peacefully. I am the one who learnt to self-soothe because comfort wasnโt safe to ask for.
Thereโs a bitter irony in knowing they will hold my children with tenderness, but couldnโt hold me with the same hands when I needed it the most.
And maybe thatโs the part of why I dream so fiercely of leaving. Of moving to the other side of the world. Of building a life so far away that the air itself feels different, less suffocating.
Itโs not just an escape. Itโs not just about healing, or simply starting over.
Part of it, the part I barely say out loud, is punishment.
Let them sit with silence, let them feel the absence of the daughter they never learned how to nurture properly. Let them taste the distance the same way I tasted emotional isolation my whole life.
Let them feel, for the first time, what itโs like when actions have consequences.
Not because I hate them, but because Iโm done carrying the consequences of their actions. Because Iโve spent years holding the weight of their fears, their expectations, their projections, and maybe now itโs time they hold the weight of mine.
Because I spent my entire life being the failure-in-waiting. The disappointment in training, the โwhat if something goes wrongโ child, and now they may have to sit with the fear that they pushed me away for good.
And God knows I am not a cruel person. But I am tired. I canโt fight anymore. I canโt keep letting people in, and believing Iโm safe, only to have it thrown back at me the moment theyโre reminded of a time they fear. I canโt keep begging to be understood by people who have barely begun to understand themselves, or who fail to understand that toxicity can manifest in many different ways.
Iโm simply withdrawing. And that withdrawal really does feel like its own kind of justice. Itโs own kind of healing. It's its own kind of rebirth.
Iโm not abandoning them, Iโm saving myself.
And maybe thatโs the real turning point in all of this, the moment I finally understand that saving myself doesnโt require their permission, their approval or their understanding. I donโt need them to validate my healing or recognise my growth. I donโt need them to rewrite the past or suddenly become the parents I always needed. I just need to walk forward, even if my legs shake, even if the grief sits heavy, even if the guilt whispers lie in the back of my mind. Because the truth is simple and sharp: I am allowed to outgrow the place that broke me. I am allowed to choose peace over proximity. I am allowed to build a life that they will never get credit for. And if the distance hurts them, then maybe for once, they can sit with pain that doesnโt belong to me. Iโm done shrinking to soothe them. Iโm done bleeding quietly. Iโm done performing. From here on out, I choose myself; loudly, fully, unapologetically. And that is the first step toward the future I deserve.
