Date: April 22, 2025
Author: Taylor Brooks
Growing up in Florida, it wasn’t the sunny paradise everyone thinks of. My childhood felt more like a constant storm—chaos, screaming, manipulation, silent treatments that made me feel like I was walking on eggshells every day. Every word spoken felt like a battle, every quiet moment had an underlying tension. It wasn’t a home; it was a battlefield.
At 18, I packed up everything and left. I wanted out. I was done being stuck in that toxic environment. I started bartending, trying to outrun the mess that had shaped me for so long. It seemed like a fresh start—until I realized I had taken all of it with me, packed away in my head and heart, and couldn’t shake it. The screaming, the manipulative games, the mind games—they followed me like shadows.
I eventually found myself babysitting. The kids I take care of are sweet, innocent, untouched by the mess I grew up in. When I see them, I envy that simplicity, that purity. It makes me wish I had been that carefree, that I had grown up in a home that was just filled with love and safety.
But I’m not like them. Every day, I smile and act like everything is fine, but it’s all a mask. Inside, there’s a weight I can’t shake. It’s there when I wake up and when I collapse at the end of the day, exhausted, my mind still replaying the chaos from years ago. I don’t talk about it. It feels like admitting defeat. But every day I carry it—this heaviness that won’t let me move forward the way I want to.
I’ve escaped physically, but emotionally, I’m still bound. And I don’t know how to cut those last ties. How to be free.
