Teenage Survival: Rebellion, Fear, and Emotional Isolation
If childhood taught me to survive quietly, my teenage years taught me to survive loudly. By this point, I had learned that the world could not be trusted. I carried fear in my body like armor, and anger bubbled beneath the surface, ready to defend me even before I understood what I was defending against. I tested boundaries. I pushed limits. I acted out in ways that scared me even more than they scared anyone else.
I wasn’t “bad.” I was hurting, unseen, and learning to protect myself in the only ways I knew. Every act of rebellion—every lie, every fight, every moment of defiance—was a response to feeling unsafe, unaccepted, and alone.
I had no safe space to feel. No adult I could trust to understand me. My emotions were ignored, dismissed, or punished. Every mistake became evidence that I was “wrong,” and every fear I expressed became something to hide.
During these years, I began to develop patterns that would follow me for decades: Distrust of authority figures, even when they meant well Hypervigilance and anticipation of danger Emotional withdrawal, shutting down to survive conflict Internalizing shame while externalizing fear and anger These patterns were survival tools—and they worked… to a point. But survival came at a cost. I learned to distrust my own feelings. I learned to act before thinking. I learned to push people away before they could reject me. I learned to numb myself in small ways, which would eventually grow into bigger escapes in adulthood.
Even in moments that looked “normal” to others—school, friends, family photos—I was constantly calculating, protecting, and hiding. My inner world was chaotic, full of pain, anger, and unprocessed trauma. I wanted to be seen. I wanted love. I wanted acceptance. But I didn’t know how to ask for it—or even believe it was possible. Teenage survival was about doing whatever I could to stay alive emotionally and physically, even when it meant hurting myself or pushing others away. It was messy. It was loud. And it was necessary for me to get through those years.
Looking back, I can see that these years weren’t wasted—they were preparing me to eventually take control of my emotions and my life. But at the time, I felt trapped, invisible, and unsafe. And the mistakes I made in survival mode were real—they shaped my next chapter: addiction, homelessness, and the moments where I almost lost myself completely.
