I wasn’t raised in safety. I was raised in survival.

Survival isn’t loud at first. It doesn’t announce itself. It teaches you quietly. Your body stays tense even when nothing is happening. You listen for footsteps before you relax. Your nervous system never quite turns off. I learned survival early.

I learned it watching adults hurt each other while pretending it was normal. I learned it understanding, without words, that moods mattered. That timing mattered. That silence keeps you safe. That being “good” meant being invisible. I learned survival by becoming hyper-aware. By reading rooms before speaking. By scanning faces for signs of danger. By learning what version of someone I was going to get before they ever opened their mouth.

I learned survival by growing up too fast. I was a child cooking for myself. I got myself to school. I managed life alone and was punished for not knowing how to be an adult. I was expected to handle responsibility without being given guidance, freedom without protection, and independence without support.

I learned survival by parenting the people who were supposed to be parenting me. I stayed up late waiting for an adult to come home drunk, afraid they wouldn’t make it. Afraid they would choke, crash, disappear. My body learned that safety depended on my vigilance. That rest was dangerous. That sleep meant letting go of control — and letting go felt unsafe.

I learned survival by carrying love and fear at the same time. I loved someone who hurt me. I trusted someone who was unpredictable. I learned that affection could turn into punishment without warning. That love could feel warm one moment and terrifying the next. That loyalty could coexist with harm.

That kind of contradiction doesn’t disappear when childhood ends. It embeds itself.

Survival followed me into adulthood. It showed up as hyper-independence. As emotional numbness. As an inability to rest without guilt. As attraction to chaos because calm felt unfamiliar. As self-blame instead of anger. As staying longer than I should have in situations that mirrored what I already knew.

Survival taught me how to endure — but not how to feel safe. And when you’re raised in survival, relief can feel like salvation. Anything that quiets the noise, softens the edge, or lets your body stand down even temporarily feels like oxygen. That’s how coping turns into numbing. That’s how numbing turns into dependence. That’s how addiction makes sense long before substances ever enter the picture.

I didn’t choose survival. Survival chose me. But surviving isn’t the same as living.

Healing has meant learning how to put my armor down. How to stop scanning for danger that no longer exists. How to let my body experience rest without punishment. How to separate who I had to become from who I actually am. Being raised in survival made me strong — but strength built in fear comes at a cost. Now, I am learning a different way. A way rooted in safety instead of hyper-vigilance. In truth instead of silence. In presence instead of endurance. I am no longer just surviving. I am unlearning survival.. because when you are raised in survival long enough, it stops being something you do and becomes something you are.

You don’t just endure situations — you become an expert at enduring. You learn how to function without support. How to push through exhaustion. How to carry responsibility without complaint. You learn how to swallow fear and keep moving because stopping was never an option.

Survival teaches you that rest is dangerous. That slowing down invites chaos. That if you are not alert, something will go wrong. So your body stays tense. Your mind stays busy. And peace feels unfamiliar — sometimes even uncomfortable. You learn to confuse strength with self-neglect.

Being raised in survival means you often don’t recognize your own needs until they’re screaming. You don’t ask for help because you were taught — implicitly or explicitly — that help isn’t coming. You learn to anticipate instead of receive. To manage instead of feel. To stay one step ahead of disaster even when there is no disaster anymore.

And then one day, you realize how tired you are. Not the kind of tired that sleep fixes — the kind that lives in your bones. The kind that comes from years of bracing for impact. From carrying adult fears in a child’s body. From loving people you had to survive instead of lean on.

Survival becomes identity in subtle ways. You become hyper-independent. You struggle to trust calm. You feel guilty when you rest. You stay longer than you should in familiar chaos. You may even judge yourself for struggling — because after everything you survived, shouldn’t you be stronger than this? But survival didn’t teach you how to be safe. It taught you how to stay alive.

Healing has required me to gently separate who I had to become from who I actually am. To recognize that the coping skills that once protected me are not character flaws — they are evidence of resilience. They worked when nothing else did. But they don’t get to run my life anymore.

Unlearning survival means allowing my body to experience safety without suspicion. It means letting myself rest without earning it. It means telling the truth even when my instincts say silence would be safer. It means choosing presence over vigilance, even when my nervous system resists. This isn’t a rejection of who I was. It’s an honoring of her.

She did what she had to do. Now I get to choose something different. Being raised in survival shaped me — but it doesn’t have to define me forever.

🕊 Closing Prayer

God,

I bring You the version of me who learned to endure instead of receive. The one who stayed alert because safety wasn’t guaranteed. The one who confused strength with self-sacrifice. Thank You for carrying me when survival was the only option. Thank You for the resilience that kept me alive. Now, teach my body a new language. One of rest instead of bracing. Of trust instead of hyper-vigilance. Of safety instead of fear. Help me honor who I was without staying who I had to be.

Amen.

XOXO, The Healing Wildflower