The names don’t leave you

Growing up, I was called things no child should ever hear.

Names that made me feel small.

Names that made me question my worth.

Names that stuck to me long after the moment passed.

At the time, I didn’t fully understand what it was doing to me. I just knew it hurt. I knew it made me feel like I had to prove myself, fix myself, shrink myself into someone more acceptable—someone who wouldn’t be criticized, yelled at, or torn down.

That kind of environment doesn’t just stay in your childhood. It follows you.

It becomes your inner voice.

Even now, as an adult, those words still echo in my mind. In moments where I should feel confident, I second-guess myself. In moments where I should feel loved, I question if I deserve it. It’s like no matter how much I grow, there’s still a part of me that hears those same voices telling me I’m not enough.

And the hardest part?

I’m a mother now.

I’m in a relationship.

And I see how those wounds show up in both.

As a mother, I’m constantly afraid of becoming what I grew up with. I overthink everything I say. I worry about how my tone sounds, how my words land, how my child feels after every interaction. I want to be soft, safe, and loving—but sometimes I catch flashes of the way I was spoken to, and it scares me.

I never want my child to feel the way I did.

But healing isn’t instant. It’s a process. And sometimes that process is messy.

As a girlfriend, it shows up differently.

I struggle with communication. I shut down when I feel overwhelmed. I get defensive, or I go quiet, not because I don’t care—but because somewhere deep down, I learned that words can hurt. That opening up can lead to being torn apart.

So I protect myself, even when I don’t need to.

Even when I’m with someone who loves me.

That’s the part that hurts the most—knowing I’m not in that environment anymore, but still reacting like I am.

Still carrying it.

Still fighting it.

There’s a certain kind of damage that comes from being mentally and emotionally torn down as a child. It doesn’t leave bruises you can see, but it changes how you see yourself. It shapes how you love, how you trust, how you exist in the world.

But here’s what I’m learning:

Just because those words were spoken to me doesn’t mean they’re true.

Just because I was treated that way doesn’t mean I deserved it.

And just because it shaped me doesn’t mean it gets to define me forever.

I’m trying—every day—to break that cycle.

To speak more gently, especially to my child.

To communicate more openly, especially in my relationship.

To unlearn the voice in my head that was never mine to begin with.

It’s not easy. Some days I still hear those names louder than anything else.

But I refuse to pass that pain on.

I refuse to become what hurt me.

I may have been raised in an environment that broke me down…

But I’m choosing, every day, to build something different.