Maybe the Real Me Never Left
There is a version of me I have been mourning for years.
I don't know if she is gone, asleep, or simply buried beneath years of learning how to survive.
For the longest time, I believed I had become someone else.
The girl who exists now is difficult to approach. Her voice is deeper. Her words come out sharper. She is impatient, easily irritated, and carries herself like she is always prepared for another battle. She doesn't cry in front of people. She keeps walls taller than bridges,
Sometimes I wonder if she is only borrowing my memories.
Because whenever I look inward, I don't picture her.
I picture a little girl.
She couldn't be older than nine.
I know that with an unsettling certiainty.
By the age of ten, something had already changed.
It was as if the little girl quietly stepped behind a curtain while someone else walked onto the stage to continue living the rest of my life.
Maybe that is why I keep asking myself whether the "real me" disappeared.
But perhaps I have been asking the wrong question all along.
I remember one evening.
It was raining heavily.
My mother asked me to accompany her to collect the money that someone had borrowed her for a long time. I had already showered. I had already dried my hair. I was ready to sleep.
I was irritated.
The rain made everything worse.
We struggled to keep our umbrellas from folding against the wind while our clothes became soaked anyway.
Then, in the middle of all that frustration, another thought quietl appeared.
“Why don't you just romanticize this moment?"
”This is your first time walking through the rain with your mother."
For a second, I wanted to.
For a second, I wanted to remember it as something warm instead of something exhausting
But I couldn't.
The irritation stayed louder than everything else.
When we got home, I threw my home, I threw my phone onto the table and walked straight to the bathroom.
Then the guilt arrived.
It always arrives after.
This has become a familiar pattern.
There is the version of me who reacts.
Then there is the version who mourns the reaction.
Sometimes I wonder if they are two different people.
Or maybe they are simply two parts of the same heart.
There was another day during my internship at a hotel.
I saw the General Manager with his wife and daughter.
Nothing extraordinary happened.
They simply looked...
like a family.
Functional.
Comfortable.
Safe.
I cried during my shift.
When my supervisor asked whether I was okay, the first words that escaped my mouth were,
"I miss them."
But the strange thing is...
I didn't.
Not exactly.
What I think I missed wasn't my parents.
I missed the possibility of having that kind of relationship.
I cried for something I had never truly experienced.
The same thing happened while watching a vlog.
A couple was traveling when they learned their child was sick.
Without hesitation, they ended their trip and went home.
No debate.
No delay.
Just love choosing its child.
I cried harder than I expected.
Then I accidentally looked into the mirror.
The crying stopped almost instantly.
It felt a though someone had remembered they weren't supposed to be vulnerable.
Recently, I noticed something I had never paid attention to before.
When I feel closest to what I call "the real me", my voice changes.
It becomes softer.
Quieter.
Almost fragile.
The voice I use every day is lower.
Sharper.
Sometimes even angry.
The difference is so obvious that it almost feels like listening to two different recordings.
Maybe my voice has been telling a story long before I found the words.
I used to believe that my tears proved the little girl was still alive.
Now I wonder if they simply prove that she was never gone.
Maybe she has only been waiting for moments that feel safe enough to step forward.
Maybe she appears whenever she witnesses the kind of love she always longed for.
A father who stays.
A mother who protects.
Parents who choose their child without hesitation.
Families that feel like home instead of something to survive.
Perhaps that is why scenes like those undo me so easily.
They don't remind me of what I had.
They remind me of what I wished for.
For a while, i searched for a diagnosis because I wanted certainty.
Maybe Complex PTSD.
Maybe dissociation.
Maybe something that could explain why I sometimes feel split between softness and survival.
The truth is, whether those words eventually become part of my story is something only a qualified mental health professional can determine.
But i no longer think the label is the most important question.
The more important question is this:
What happened to the little girl before she decided she needed someone stronger to protect her?
I know the answer.
Maybe one day I will face it,
Until then...
I don't think I will keep asking,
"Where is the real me?"
Instead, I will ask,
"What does she need in order to feel safe enough to come closer?“
Because maybe healing isn't about becoming someone new.
Maybe healing is about making enough room for the little girl who has been quietly waiting behind every wall I ever built.
And maybe...
just maybe...
she never left.
She simply learned to whisper,
