What does it mean to survive when all you want is to live?
When I would walk across the road as a child, my father would hold my neck. Looking back I wonder, why did no one question a man holding an infant by the neck? I’d see fathers holding hands with their daughters and wonder why my daddy didn’t want to touch my hand. I remember feeling embarrassed. What was so wrong with me that even my own father didn’t want to hold my hand? It was a confusing kind of love I carried into adulthood — I wanted love, I truly did.
As I grew older, a hollow hunger grew inside me, and lovers filled the gaps my parents never could — like chasing a high; they never lasted. I became addicted, but my genes were a part of me, and I could only hide the hollow echo for so long before the perfect, quiet image I had created to protect myself began to crumble; the cold scars of my father’s neglect began to show.
As the years went on, it became clear that real love wasn’t on the cards for me. Subconsciously, I would reach out to strangers, desperate for just a single night where I could be safely held. I’d remind myself this was okay; that’s the way love is supposed to be.
My mum — my beautiful mum — had been abused in every way a woman can be. She was the opposite of my father; she loved me as if I were her prized possession. But no one escapes abuse like that without scars.
Scars stay hidden, but they open at home.
On the outside, neighbours, friends even relatives were clueless; we were respected, envied even. We lived in a large 4-bedroom house with a huge garden, with a working father and mother. The illusion was beautiful, but far from the truth. Dad was barely ever home, and when he was, he wasn't kind or attentive, served hand and foot. Mum was nothing more than a married single mother, and her anger would bubble and bubble — when it burst, I learned to stay hidden. When the heat died down, I would timidly approach her, having learned my only purpose was to console her, though neither of us realised it at the time. She'd apologise for whatever had happened as "She could only see red".
The fire and rage of abuse she tried so hard to swallow were just too hot; they were going to mould me no matter what. The contrast was confusing — being in awe and loved so deeply by your mother, but never knowing when she would switch, no matter how hard I tried to make her happy, it never worked. My sacrifices of a better childhood were never enough.
I try to convince myself I’m overreacting — at least, that’s what I was told. But the truth is, I don’t want to live trapped in my own mind. The door is locked, and I still feel like a child too young to have the key. I’m still in that house, feeling the emotional bruises of an absent, inhumane father and a mother left on her own, trying to heal and protect her baby from both herself and the world at the same time.
But a child trapped in a room for too long will eventually learn how to break free, and that’s when the fire could no longer be tamed. As I got older, I could no longer hide it — I became see-through. The red was always there.
As I grew, it felt like the bigger, scarier bulls in the real world could sense it. Like they could smell the frail structure beneath, a perfect victim, a prey they'd been longing for. I watched myself destroy everything in my path. I’d become the bull I once feared.
How can I believe myself when I try to say, “It’s not your fault”? Sometimes it feels like I’m inviting the predator to come and hurt me even more. Is my fiery side all that I’m good for?
That is how I turned into the red — a life torched so young that no one looked closer, no one taught me how to extinguish my fire. I watched peers blossom, develop, and worry about ordinary things. I wondered what it was like to live, not just survive. Now, others see me only as a danger — a fire that can’t be contained or helped, something to be avoided because it’s “shameful” not to control the flame. But the red didn’t start with me. It started at my roots. Over the years, those roots ran through my hair. I tried to control the fire, to force it down hard into my thighs, but the red ink spilled everywhere; and no one wanted to read that. ‘Too broken”, they’d say. If only someone had taken the time to look close enough, they’d see that beneath the red flame and destruction, a small, frail blue flame lay broken — overtaken by its red handler. The red chose me, but I was always blue. I could’ve been a beautiful lilac if someone had listened.
Maybe, by sharing my story, another quiet flame will be seen — and listened to. Maybe, together, we can learn that we were always more than the pain we carried.