where it took root
The moment that shaped how I understood love—and why I felt responsible for keeping it.
There’s usually a reason we become who we are—some defining moment, or series of moments, that takes part in the forming of who we’ll grow into as adults, what shape our identity will take, and how we’ll show up in relationships… whether as the go-getter or the wallflower, the truth-teller or the “yes” girl.
I’ve also shared this part of the story on YouTube, for those who prefer to listen or watch.
If this resonates with you, I’d love to have you there as well.
Before I go further, I want to say that I’m going to briefly reference childhood sexual abuse. I won’t go into detail, but it’s relevant to the rest of this story and to the deeper root of what I’m sharing. Sadly, this is more common than we’d like to believe—and more often than not, still kept secret.
When I was little, about five or six years old, I didn’t have language for what was happening to me. Suffice it to say that what took place—and where—are still vivid in my memory. Even now, those times can surface unexpectedly, usually when I feel I’m being emotionally controlled or pressured by another, and can feel just as hurtful and confusing as they did more than 50 years ago.
As I reflect on those memories, something else happened around that same time—something bound up with what was already going on, something that, after it occurred, solidified who I became from then on.
Now, as I sit with the truth of it, I understand how it became more damaging, for me, than the other.
My mother called it the “kid store.”
She told me that if I didn’t straighten up and mind her, she would call and trade me in for a child who minded and loved her mother. I was a little girl, and I believed her.
The second time she made the threat, she made the call. I didn’t know it was my aunt on the other end of the line; I only knew what I heard. I remember being beside myself—crying and begging her not to give me away, promising to be good, promising to mind her.
Something sharp settled into me in those moments, something that became my truest belief: that love could be lost… and that it was my responsibility, somehow, to keep it. No matter the cost.
For me, it was the beginning of people-pleasing as emotional survival.
I’ve often wondered whether those two experiences became linked in that moment. Whether some part of me feared that telling the bad thing that was happening might somehow make me easier to give away. I can’t say for certain, but I’ve wondered if that played a role in why I kept that secret for so many years.
If you’re close to my age, the chances are high you’ve heard the term “tough love,” usually linked to a teenager or young adult—someone with the capacity to understand consequence.
I hadn’t made this connection until recently—actually, while writing this post—but what might be considered “tough love” for someone older can land very differently in a child.
A child doesn’t have the capacity to filter a threat like that. They don’t hear discipline; they hear the possibility of losing love, of losing their place, of being unwanted. And that kind of message doesn’t just pass through as some random correction from a parent.
It takes root.
“Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me.” — Psalm 27:10
This is Part 2 of a 3-part series.
Read the full story here
Watch Part 2 on YouTube
Go back to Part 1
