How Do You Explain A Wound Made Of Nothing?
Growing up with emotionally absent parents doesn’t come with a diagnosis. There’s no scar to trace. No exact moment you can point to and say: That’s when it all went wrong.
It was a slow, deep festering. The kind of hurt that enters quietly and continues to ache long after it should have stopped.
•••
The lucky among us had dinner made, a roof over our heads. But where all of us lacked was in being seen. In being fully and deeply accepted.
That was impossible, because the people we were counting on to raise us up were never really there. Not in the way that mattered. Not in a way that made us feel safe.
So we learned to stop asking questions. We learned to stop looking for help. We learned to be careful sharing pieces of ourself.
Instead, we scanned people like our lives depended on it. We anticipated every mood. We over-explained. Over-functioned. Over-apologized.
We became the kind of person who says I’m fine, and everyone believes it. Useful. Non-disruptive. Self-sufficient to a fault.
We became excellent at not being a burden.
And now, when we try to name it, we’re met with guilt and shame. Because how do you explain a wound made of nothing?
How do you explain that traumas without a capital T leave scars only you can see? And that for most of your life, even you didn’t know they were there?
So we minimize. We say yes, they probably meant well. We say no, it wasn’t that bad. We say it’s their first time living too, as if that explains everything away.
But deep down we know it’s not true, because pieces of us still ache. Quietly. In the space between days. In the silence after acting vulnerably—when all we want is to disappear.
Maybe it was trauma. Maybe it was addiction. Maybe they never had parents who connected with them. Whatever the reason, regardless of their intentions, our parents didn’t fulfill the roles they were meant to play. Not fully. Not in a way that would have left a light inside us…instead of something else.
And now we’re left to learn the lessons they should have been teaching. How to be comfortable in our skin. How to reach out to others for help. How to be confident and stand up for ourself.
Until one day, we see the painful but empowering truth: we have to teach ourselves something we should have never had to learn—how not to let their emotional absence keep us from loving our most authentic self.
- Will
Subscriber Feature: The Article I Never Want My Dad To Read
When I was a kid, my dad would sometimes call me (and my siblings) a slang word for tick—that little insect that latches on and won’t let go.