People often compliment women like me.
“You’re so strong.”
“You always figure things out.”
“You never need help.”
What they rarely ask is why.
Because hyper-independence is not usually confidence.
It is adaptation.
It is what happens when childhood quietly teaches you that your survival belongs entirely to you.
I became a sister at nine.
Then I became a sister again at ten.
But somewhere between becoming a sibling and becoming a teenager, I quietly became something else.
I became responsible for everyone.
I cooked.
I cleaned.
I ironed clothes.
I cared for babies.
I managed households.
I carried responsibilities far bigger than my tiny shoulders should ever have carried.
And I was still just a little girl.
People often imagine childhood trauma as one singular event.
But sometimes trauma is repetition.
Sometimes trauma is what happens every single day.
Trauma is never quite relaxing because fear lives in the walls of your house.
Trauma is lying in bed listening carefully for footsteps.
Trauma is knowing exactly how long someone takes to finish a shower because you are racing against consequences.
I would wake to banging on my bedroom door.
Sometimes 6:30.
Sometimes 7:00.
My stepfather demanding coffee.
Demanding shirts ironed.
Demanding things done before he had even finished his morning shower.
Failure had consequences.
Serious consequences.
I lived in constant fear.
I was beaten.
Dragged by my hair.
Pulled by my ears.
Sent outside at eleven o’clock at night in pouring rain to pick up dog poo.
Not because it needed doing.
Because someone wanted power.
I wasn’t allowed to sit on the lounge with the family.
If television was allowed at all, I sat separately at the dining table.
Even when trying to do homework in my bedroom there would suddenly be bang bang bang against the wall.
That sound meant come immediately.
Not because something important had happened.
Sometimes because the remote control sitting directly in front of him needed handing over.
Sometimes because coffee was required.
Sometimes simply because control demanded obedience.
People often ask where my mother was.
Usually in bed.
Reading romance novels.
Living inside fictional worlds while the reality sitting in the next room was a daughter quietly disappearing.
People ask where my father was.
He was building another life.
Another family.
Another future.
He had more daughters.
A son.
Birthdays came and went.
Nothing.
When I was twelve, I received a street directory and a box of chocolates.
Inside was a note.
“Here’s our address. Maybe one day you’ll bother to come and see us.”
I was twelve years old.
Living in a tiny country town over 800 kilometres away.
Children do not organise interstate reunions.
Adults do.
What childhood teaches you matters.
And my childhood taught me something dangerous.
It taught me that if I needed comfort, I should provide it myself.
If I needed help, I should figure it out.
If I was hurting, I should hide it.
So I did.
I developed severe anorexia.
At one point I weighed thirty-four kilograms.
I was fainting.
Hitting my head.
Passing out.
Even then, my suffering often felt less important than the inconvenience it created and that was on the rare occasion I was even seen to by any medical staff, why? for fear of them seeing the bruises and wounds.
This is the thing people misunderstand about childhood trauma.
Trauma is not only what happened to you.
Trauma is also what should have happened but never did.
Protection.
Safety.
Comfort.
Someone saying:
“This should not be happening to you.”
The only person who gave me some version of that was my grandmother.
Every school holidays she would come.
Not because she could save me.
But because she saw me.
Sometimes survival is not being rescued.
Sometimes survival is simply having one person quietly witness your pain and remind you that you are not imagining it.
This continued until I ran away at sixteen.
People ask how children become hyper-independent.
This is how.
You stop expecting rescue.
You stop asking for help.
You become capable because capability feels safer than vulnerability.
Eventually people start calling you resilient.
But resilience and survival are not always the same thing.
Because when a child learns nobody is coming, she often grows into a woman who believes she must carry absolutely everything alone.
And the cruel part?
Everyone applauds her for it.
