People say the environment you grow up in shapes who you become. That said, if you grew up in a safe and loving place, you’ll likely be a positive, cheerful, and self-confident individual.
However, if you grew up in an environment where expressing love felt like a burden, or if you were always left behind, you may develop into a negative, self-centered, or arrogant person.
The environment and people that surround us define our identity.
When I look back, I realize how much I hated who I was a few years ago. Life had turned me into someone no one recognized, not even my parents.
It all started when my parents divorced on my 3rd birthday. At five years old, my dad married another woman who never wanted me. I felt like an intruder in my father’s house. I became lonely and abandoned. I realized at a very young age that there was no one to protect me.
I remember my stepmother once saying, “People you love will never love you back.”
She was right back then.
But that statement is no longer valid today.
I’m no longer that little girl.
As time passed, I started questioning myself.
What’s my purpose in this life?
Why am I here?
Do I want to continue like this?
Sometimes, when there’s nobody to push you, you have to push yourself. And that only happens when you take accountability for your life.
No one is coming to save you.
There was a time when life felt too heavy to carry, too loud.
I didn’t start journaling because I loved it.
I started journaling because I needed to breathe, to live, to build myself, to escape the vicious cycle I was in.
Back in 9th grade, when the world I knew was falling apart, when my stepmother also divorced and left behind nine children, including me, and I was the eldest, I found myself reaching for paper and pen out of survival.
I didn’t yet understand it, but those pages became the safest place I knew.
Growing up in a home where love felt inconsistent and fragile, I wrote about the anger that tormented me like a ghost.
I wrote about sadness that transcended my body and face.
I wrote about dreams I didn’t even believe in.
Somewhere between those silent pages,
I started to heal.
Even now, as a woman navigating life far from home between cultures and identities, I always return to my journal as a home I built with my own hands.
Journaling is my safe place.
💛 A Note to You
If you’re carrying something heavy,
If you’re questioning who you are,
Or if you simply need a space that’s fully yours…
Start writing.
It doesn’t have to be beautiful or perfect.
Just begin.
Your healing may be waiting between the lines.
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