The Language We Learn When Home Doesn't Feel Safe

I read something Jann Arden wrote recently about growing up with her father.

She described a home where anger could erupt, where she was frightened of him, and where you didn't always know what you were going to be in trouble for.

Then she wrote something that stayed with me.

The only time she remembered hearing her father say her name was when she was in trouble.

I sat with that.

Because there are things some of us learned as children that nobody actually taught us.

We learned sounds.

Footsteps.

Doors.

Voices.

Silence.

We learned that tiny change in someone's face that told us something was coming.

We learned how hard someone put something down on the counter.

We learned whether it was safe to speak.

We learned whether we should disappear for a while.

We learned how to read a room.

And I've been wondering how much of what we call personality later in life actually began there.

We describe people as sensitive.

Reactive.

Quiet.

Defensive.

People pleasers.

Always watching.

Unable to relax.

Quick to anger.

Quick to withdraw.

But maybe sometimes we're looking at the adult version of something that once made perfect sense.

A child doesn't know they're developing coping mechanisms.

They're just trying to get through the day.

If anger is unpredictable, you learn to predict it.

If someone's mood controls the house, you learn to monitor moods.

If making a small mistake can produce a huge reaction, you learn to fear mistakes.

If speaking makes things worse, you learn silence.

If nobody protects you, maybe you learn to protect yourself.

And sometimes you learn to fight.

Then childhood ends.

Except not everything ends with it.

I'm 57 years old now, and I increasingly find myself looking backward while also looking at the generations coming behind me.

And I wonder how much we carry without realizing we're carrying it.

You can leave the house.

Leave the city.

Leave the people.

Build another life.

Become successful.

Raise children.

Work.

Write.

Love.

Change.

Heal.

And still have moments when something reaches straight through the decades.

A raised voice.

A certain tone.

Someone in authority talking down to you.

Being blamed for something.

Watching someone use power simply because they have it.

Suddenly you're not only responding to what is happening in front of you.

You're responding to everything that taught you what that moment might mean.

That's something I've come to understand differently as I've gotten older.

Trauma isn't only about remembering what happened.

Sometimes it's about what happened teaching you how the world works.

Stay quiet.

Don't make mistakes.

Don't upset anyone.

Watch everyone.

Keep the peace.

Be useful.

Don't ask for too much.

Don't trust authority.

Don't let anyone control you.

Fight when something is wrong.

And then we carry those rules into places where they may no longer apply.

I think about this when I look at people in my community.

We are very quick to decide who someone is from what they're doing right now.

Difficult.

Angry.

Lazy.

Addicted.

Unstable.

Rude.

Strange.

Too sensitive.

We see the behaviour.

We rarely see the road that brought someone there.

That doesn't mean people aren't responsible for their behaviour.

Of course we are.

Being hurt doesn't give us permission to hurt somebody else.

Trauma doesn't excuse cruelty.

But understanding isn't the same thing as excusing.

Sometimes understanding is simply recognizing that the person standing in front of us didn't begin existing when we met them.

They arrived carrying a lifetime.

Sometimes generations.

That's one reason community matters so much to me.

Because I don't think community is supposed to mean gathering only with people who are easy to understand.

Community means making room for complicated human beings.

People with histories.

People who have failed.

People who are healing.

People who are still struggling.

People who react differently than we do.

People who learned different languages of survival.

And perhaps healing isn't forgetting those languages.

I'm not sure we ever completely do.

Maybe healing is learning another language alongside them.

Learning that disagreement isn't always danger.

That someone's bad mood isn't necessarily ours to fix.

That making a mistake doesn't mean punishment is coming.

That authority doesn't always mean powerlessness.

That we can say no.

That we can leave.

That we don't have to keep everyone happy.

That silence can simply be silence.

That our own name doesn't have to sound like a warning.

And perhaps one of the greatest things we can give another human being is an experience that contradicts what fear once taught them.

A safe conversation.

A second chance.

Someone who listens.

Someone who doesn't leave.

Someone who doesn't use power simply because they have it.

A community where they don't have to spend every moment figuring out whether they're safe.

Because not every room needs to be read.

Some rooms should simply be safe enough to live in.