The Thing I Wish My Younger Self Knew
Last night I caught myself thinking, what’s the one thing I’d tell my younger self if I had the chance? The answer came to me quick, sharp, and almost painful.
Speak up.
That’s it. That’s the answer. If you want to read more of what I’d tell my younger self, check out A Letter to My Younger Self: A Message for Healing.
It sounds simple, but when I look back at my childhood, at the abuse, the shame, and the silence, it felt like the most impossible thing to do. And the regret of not doing it has followed me my whole life.
Why Speaking Up as a Child Feels Impossible
When you’re a kid, speaking up isn’t just about saying what happened to you out loud. It’s about safety. About whether the adults around you can actually handle the truth. Will they believe you? Will they protect you? Or will they just turn away and act like they didn’t hear? And so I stayed quiet. For years. Too many years.
Silence became my survival strategy. It was the way I protected myself. How I keep the secret. I learned not to make noise. Or give them a reason to make it worse. I didn’t want to risk the fireworks that would come the second the truth slips out. So I swallowed it all. Every feeling, every fear, every moment of pain that I had no words for anyway.
The Lasting Cost of Staying Silent
And now, looking back, I realize exactly what it cost me.
I regret not speaking up because the silence turned into a permanent heavy weight I carried with me. It taught me to doubt myself, to bury my own needs, and to question whether I even had the right to exist in life. It also taught me that if I was hurting, I should hide it. That keeping my mouth shut was safer, even when my whole body was screaming.
And as bad as the abuse was, it was the silence that ultimately shaped me.
Why It Wasn’t My Fault
The truth is, I didn’t speak up because I couldn’t. I didn’t know how. Or know who to turn to. I was terrified. And now, as an adult, I’m finally learning it wasn’t my fault. Because kids don’t fail to speak up, they survive the only way they know how.
Still, I have regrets, and why wouldn’t I?
I wish I could go back and tell that little boy version of me, “Tell someone. Tell anyone. Your voice matters. You matter.”
Finding My Voice as an Adult
But since I can’t, I do the next best thing. I write about it now. And I speak up as the adult I am today, where I tell my truth, even when I feel I shouldn’t. I let people see the mess, the scars, and the reality of what it means to live with CPTSD.
Speaking up now doesn’t change the past, but it changes me. It’s how I start to loosen the grip that silence has had on me for so long. It’s how I let my younger self know, even if only in memory, that his voice was never too small, never too much, and certainly was never a mistake.
A Message to My Younger Self, and to You
So, yeah. If I had one thing to tell my younger self, it would be this:
Speak up. Even if it’s just a whisper. Even if no one listens right away.
Speak up, because your story deserves to be heard.
And so do you.
Photo by Rafael Garcin on Unsplash