I’ve always been a recluse. Not in the romanticized, mysterious way people like to imagine — more like a survival mechanism. Growing up, isolation wasn’t a choice. It was a shield.
My father was abusive. First physically, then emotionally, and now — decades later — the mental and emotional abuse continues like a slow leak in the walls of my life. It’s not loud anymore. It’s insidious. It’s the kind of manipulation that makes you question your own memory, your own worth, your own sanity. I’ve spent years trying to patch the damage, but some wounds don’t close. They get quieter.
When I was younger, in that awkward adolescent phase where hormones and hope collide, a girl showed a flicker of interest in me. I didn’t know what to do with it. I didn’t even get the chance to figure it out. My parents — and extended family — teased me relentlessly. It wasn’t playful. It was humiliating. They turned my discomfort into a punchline, and that moment planted something deep in me: the belief that romantic attention was dangerous, embarrassing, and not meant for someone like me.
That was the groundwork. That was the blueprint for my discomfort with relationships.
As I got older, I watched my father treat my mother with cruelty that still makes my stomach turn. Their marriage was a sham — a performance for the outside world, but inside that house, it was a war zone. I saw the way he belittled her, controlled her, gaslit her, and drained her spirit. I saw the way she shrank, the way she tried to hold the family together…
