Learning to Be Seen After a Childhood Spent Disappearing

“The habits you created to survive will no longer serve you when it’s time to thrive.” ~Eboni Davis

I learned early how to measure the danger in a room. With a narcissistic mother, the air could shift in an instant—her tone slicing through me, reminding me that my feelings had no place.

With an alcoholic stepfather, the threat was louder, heavier, and more unpredictable. I still remember the slam of bottles on the counter, the crack of his voice turning to fists, the way I would hold my breath in the dark, hoping the storm would pass without landing on me.

In that house, love wasn’t safe. Love was survival. And survival meant disappearing—making myself small, silent, and invisible so I wouldn’t take up too much space in a world already drowning in chaos.

In a home like that, there was no space to simply be a child. My mother’s moods came first—her pain, her need for control. With her, I learned to hide the parts of myself that were “too much” because nothing I did was ever enough. With my stepfather, I learned to walk carefully, always scanning for danger, always bracing for the next eruption.

So I became the quiet one. The peacekeeper. The invisible daughter who tried to keep the house from falling apart, even when it already was. I carried a weight far too heavy for my small shoulders, believing it was my job to make things okay, even though deep down, I knew I couldn’t.

Those patterns didn’t stay in the walls of my childhood home; they followed me into adulthood. I carried silence like a second skin, disappearing in relationships whenever love began to feel unsafe. I learned to give until I was empty, to lose myself in caring for others, to believe that if I stayed quiet enough, small enough, I might finally be loved.

But love that required me to vanish was never love at all. It was survival all over again. I found myself repeating the same patterns, choosing partners who mirrored the chaos I had grown up with, shutting down whenever I felt too much. I confused pain for love, silence for safety, and in doing so, I abandoned myself again and again.

The cost was heavy: years of feeling invisible, unworthy, and unseen. Years of believing my voice didn’t matter, my needs were too much, and my story was something to hide.

For a long time, I believed this was just who I was—invisible, unworthy, built to carry pain. But there came a night when even survival felt too heavy. I was sitting in the cold, in a tent I was calling home, with nothing but silence pressing in around me. The air was damp, my body shivering beneath thin blankets, every sound outside reminding me how unsafe and alone I felt.

And for the first time, instead of disappearing into that silence, I whispered, “I can’t keep living like this.” The words were shaky, but they felt like a lifeline—the first honest thing I had said to myself in years.

It wasn’t a dramatic transformation. Nothing changed overnight. But something inside me cracked open, a small ember of truth I hadn’t let myself feel before: I deserved more than this. I was worthy of more than surviving.

That whisper became a seed. I started writing again, pouring the words I could never say onto paper. Slowly, those words became a lifeline—a way of reclaiming the voice I had silenced for so long. Every page reminded me that my story mattered, even if no one else had ever said it. And piece by piece, I began to believe it.

Survival patterns protect us, but they don’t have to define us. For years, disappearing kept me safe. Staying quiet shielded me from conflict I couldn’t control. But surviving isn’t the same as living, and the patterns that once protected me no longer have to shape who I am becoming.

Writing can be a way of reclaiming your voice. When I couldn’t speak, I wrote. Every sentence became proof that I existed, that my story was real, that I had something worth saying. Sometimes healing begins with a pen and a page—the simple act of letting your truth take shape outside of you.

It is not selfish to take up space. Growing up, I believed my needs were too much, my presence a burden. But the truth is that we all deserve to be seen, to be heard, to take up space in the world without apology.

We don’t have to heal alone. So much of my pain came from carrying everything in silence. Healing has taught me that there is strength in being witnessed, in letting others hold us when the weight is too much to carry by ourselves.

I still carry the echoes of that house—the silence, the chaos, the parts of me that once believed I wasn’t worthy of love. But today, I hold them differently. They no longer define me; they remind me of how far I’ve come.

I cannot change the family I was born into or the pain that shaped me. But I can choose how I grow from it. And that choice—to soften instead of harden, to speak instead of disappear, to heal instead of carry it all in silence—has changed everything.

I am still learning, still growing, still coming home to myself. But I no longer disappear. I know now that my story matters—and so does yours.

So I invite you to pause and ask yourself: Where have you mistaken survival for love? What parts of you have learned to stay silent, and what might happen if you gave them a voice?

Even the smallest whisper of truth can be the beginning of a new life. Your story matters too. May you find the courage to stop surviving and begin truly living.

May we all learn to take up space without apology, to speak our truths without fear, and to find safety not in silence, but in love.

About Tracy Lynn

Tracy Lynn is the founder of From Darkness We Grow, a healing space for those who carry emotional pain in silence. Through journals, courses, and her online community, The Healing Circle, she helps others reclaim their voice and remember their worth. Connect with Tracy at fromdarknesswegrow.com. You can also find support in The Healing Circle.

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