When Words Leave Shadows

There are days when I look back at my childhood and realise that most of my wounds were never about the big events – they were born in the quiet moments, the ones that were supposed to be ordinary. A conversation that ended too fast. A sentence that came out sharper than intended. A silence that lasted a little too long. And because I was a child, I didn’t understand the difference between someone having a bad day and someone being disappointed in me. I just assumed it was always my fault.

I remember trying to decode every expression on my parents’ faces. A frown meant I had done something wrong. A raised voice meant I was the problem. Even their worry felt like blame because they never explained the difference. I didn’t know how to separate their tone from their intention, so I carried both as proof that something was inherently flawed in me.

Nobody tells you that a child fills in emotional blanks with the harshest interpretation possible.

If they didn’t explain, I assumed the worst.

If they walked away, I believed I wasn’t worth staying for.

If they misunderstood me, I convinced myself I was impossible to understand.

And with time, those early misunderstandings became habits – quiet, automatic habits that stretched into adulthood. I still apologise before I speak. I still soften my tone even when I’m not wrong. I still shrink at the sound of anger even when it has nothing to do with me. Sometimes I shut down completely because the child inside me is still terrified of saying too much.

But as I grew older, I realised something I couldn’t grasp back then:

My parents never learned a gentler language either.

They were raised by people who spoke in the same tones, carried the same silence, reacted with the same quick edges. They grew up surrounded by adults who were used to misunderstanding as a normal part of communication. No one taught them otherwise. So the way they spoke wasn’t unique or targeted – it was simply familiar. It didn’t feel hurtful to them – it felt ordinary. And sometimes, ordinary patterns can still leave extraordinary marks.

I know my parents love me. I have never questioned that.

But we communicate differently, and that difference is where the fractures formed.

Healing, for me, has meant learning to translate what I feel instead of swallowing it. I’m teaching myself that asking for clarity is not disrespect, that expressing discomfort is not rebellion, and that being misunderstood doesn’t mean I should disappear into silence.

But the ending – the part I’m still learning – is this:

I am allowed to take up space even if no one in my family ever learned how.

I am allowed to speak even if the voice I inherited trembles.

I am allowed to rewrite the language I was taught.

And maybe one day, I’ll stop flinching at tones that remind me of my childhood. Maybe one day, I’ll stop confusing fear with obedience and silence with peace. Maybe one day, I’ll forgive the child version of me who carried patterns she never created.

Until then, I keep going. I keep unlearning. I keep believing that the shadows don’t make me broken – they simply show where I’m still learning to bring in light.