Feeling Trapped

 If you asked me how I felt as a child—and even into my teenage years—I would answer with one word.

Trapped.

I felt trapped inside a house where I didn’t feel safe.

I felt trapped in a place where I couldn’t simply be myself.

Shame and guilt were woven into everyday life.

Even ordinary things carried no sense of choice. I don’t remember my mother asking any of us what we would like to eat. We were expected to eat whatever was placed before us, whether we liked it or not. It wasn’t really about the food. It was about having no voice.

There were so many rules.

So little freedom.

As a little girl, I dreamed of the day I could leave that house behind.

I believed that when I finally walked out the door, I would be free.

Yet as I look back over my life, I see that the feeling of being trapped has returned in different forms.

Just before I came into recovery, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue. My body became a prison. Some days I didn’t even have enough energy to make my bed.

Then, almost ten years ago, those illnesses disappeared as mysteriously as they had arrived.

I thought perhaps that chapter had ended.

But sometime later, the nerve pain in my knees began.

Once again, I felt trapped.

I became afraid to bend my knees, convinced I might be causing more damage, even though that wasn’t true. Fear quietly limited my world. I spent countless hours lying down because sitting became too painful.

Then came the bladder pain.

Once again, I felt trapped.

Lying down hurts.

Sitting hurts.

Standing too long hurts.

There are days when it feels as though there isn’t a comfortable place for my body to exist.

So few choices.

So little freedom.

As I write these words, I can’t help but wonder if that feeling of being trapped has become one of the deepest threads running through my life.

Not because every illness is caused by childhood trauma.

But because each season of physical limitation awakens something very old inside me.

The little girl who couldn’t leave the house.

The woman who longs to move freely through the world.

Perhaps that is why these experiences feel so intertwined.

So what is the lesson?

Is it simply to recognize how deeply the fear of being trapped has shaped my life?

Is it to discover a freedom that doesn’t depend entirely on my circumstances?

Or is it something else that I cannot yet see?

I don’t have the answers.

But I know this much.

The longing for freedom has lived inside me for as long as I can remember.

And maybe that longing itself is leading me home—not to the house I grew up in, but to a place within myself where no wound, no fear, and no illness can completely imprison my spirit.

The Patience of Surrender

 It is hard not to become discouraged.

Sometimes it feels as though I am carrying a wound that is nearly seventy years old. I have searched for it. Prayed over it. Sat with it. Cried through it. Tried to understand it.

And yet, it still feels as though something inside me remains frozen in time.

When I cannot seem to reach that place, I feel stuck.

It feels as though the little girl within me is still living with the pain, the fear, and the memories of the past. Sometimes it even seems as though she is afraid of what freedom might feel like.

After all, fear has been familiar.

Freedom has not.

If she has lived her whole life expecting danger, perhaps safety itself feels unfamiliar. Perhaps stepping into the light is not as simple as opening a door. Perhaps it requires trusting a world she never learned to trust.

I have tried to reassure her.

I have told her she is safe.

I have reminded her that she is no longer alone.

Some days those words seem to reach her.

Other days, her fear feels so much bigger than anything I can say.

And that is where I find myself today.

Not with another answer.

Not with another technique.

Only with surrender.

I cannot force healing.

I cannot force the past to let go.

I cannot force a frightened little girl to trust before she is ready.

Love cannot be forced.

Safety cannot be demanded.

Healing cannot be rushed.

Perhaps my task is not to rescue her but to remain faithfully beside her, as long as it takes.

To let her borrow my courage until she discovers her own.

To trust that even when I cannot see movement, something unseen may still be unfolding beneath the surface.

So today, my prayer is simple.

God, give me patience.

Give me the grace to stop measuring healing by how quickly old wounds disappear.

Teach me to trust that staying present is not the same as standing still.

And if all I can do today is love that little girl without asking her to change, then let that be enough.

Looking for Safety

 I think I have spent most of my life searching for one thing.

Safety.

The kind of safety I rarely knew as a child.

I found glimpses of it at my grandparents’ house. There, I could breathe. I could play. I could simply be a little girl.

But I never truly felt it in the home where I grew up.

So I spent the rest of my life searching for what I had lost before I even knew how to name it.

At first, I searched for it in my first boyfriend.

Then in every relationship that followed.

I always believed that having a man beside me would somehow make me feel safe.

I rarely knew how to be alone.

When my partner died two and a half years ago, I didn’t just lose the love of my life.

The little girl inside me lost the place where she believed she was safe.

Since then, I have lost all desire to be in another relationship.

Perhaps because I am beginning to understand that no one outside of me was ever meant to carry that responsibility.

I also searched for safety through control.

If I could plan enough…

Manage enough…

Anticipate every possibility…

Maybe nothing bad would happen.

But the truth is, I never had control to begin with.

Control wasn’t safety.

It was only the illusion of safety.

One by one, the places where my little girl used to hide have disappeared.

The relationships.

The distractions.

The illusion of control.

Without them, there are days when I feel incredibly raw.

Exposed.

Vulnerable.

It is not easy to sit with those feelings.

Every part of me wants to run toward something familiar.

But there is nowhere left to run.

Only somewhere to surrender.

Each day I sit beside my little girl.

I speak gently to her.

I remind her that she is no longer alone.

I tell her that I will not abandon her.

She is listening.

But she has not fully learned to trust me in that way yet.

After all, she spent a lifetime believing that safety had to come from somewhere else.

Trust like that is not built in a day.

It is built one gentle moment at a time.

Perhaps one day she will discover what I am only beginning to believe—

That the safety she has searched for all her life has never been found in another person or in control.

It has been quietly waiting…

Within us all along.