It wasn’t my fault.

I repeat this to myself because for so long I carried the weight as if it were mine to hold. The heaviness of a childhood that was difficult, unstable, and confusing. The shame of parents who failed to show up in the ways they should have. The ache of wanting guidance, safety, and love but receiving inconsistency, neglect, or even harm instead. I didn’t choose that environment. I didn’t choose the lessons I had to learn too young. I didn’t choose the silence, the chaos, or the ways I had to bend and twist myself to survive.

It wasn’t my fault.

But it is my responsibility. That’s the complicated truth I live with now. I can’t hand back the trauma like a broken toy and say, “You fix it.” I can’t go back in time and demand that my parents grow up before raising me. I can’t force them to give me the childhood I deserved. The damage was done, and now the work of repair rests with me. As unfair as that is, I also know it’s the only way forward. Because if I don’t take responsibility for healing, I’m the one who stays stuck. I’m the one who repeats their patterns. I’m the one who lets my past steal pieces of my present—and I refuse to do that.

I will not be the same kind of adult they were. I will not be the same kind of parent they were. This healing isn’t only for me—it’s for the future I’m building. It’s so the cycle stops with me. It’s so the children in my care will never wonder if they are loved, never question if they matter, never carry the weight of being the emotional adult in their own childhood. The responsibility I take on today creates a completely different tomorrow.

So I have to work on myself. Every single day.

That doesn’t mean pretending I’m fine or striving to be some perfect version of “healed.” It means showing up for myself the way no one else did. It means noticing when I’m triggered and choosing not to numb it away, but instead to ask: What do I need right now? What does that younger version of me need to hear? It means reminding myself that boundaries are not cruelty—they are care. They are the fences that keep me safe, the spaces where my self-respect grows. And it means modeling those boundaries so that anyone who looks up to me learns that love doesn’t require self-erasure.

It also means dismantling the people-pleasing habits that once felt like survival. As a child, I learned that making other people comfortable might keep me safe. That saying yes, swallowing my needs, and smoothing over conflict might preserve some kind of fragile peace. But I am not a child anymore. I am an adult, and when I silence myself now, it’s not survival—it’s self-betrayal. And if I want to be a different parent, a different adult, I must choose differently. I must show that honesty and authenticity matter more than appeasement. I must prove through my actions that love is strongest when it allows people to be whole.

There’s a part of me that still feels guilty when I draw those lines. That guilt is old—it belongs to a child who was punished for needing too much or shamed for wanting something different. But I am learning that guilt doesn’t mean I’m wrong. Guilt is simply the echo of old conditioning. Boundaries, on the other hand, are the language of self-love. Every time I say no, every time I stand up for myself, every time I protect my peace, I am reminding myself: I matter. I am enough. I am allowed to take up space. And every time I do that, I rewrite what love looks like for the next generation.

Healing is not quick. It’s not linear. Some days I feel strong, full of clarity, and deeply proud of how far I’ve come. Other days I feel like I’ve barely moved, like the shadows of the past are still too close. But even then, I remind myself—this is the work. The work is in showing up again and again. The work is in not abandoning myself the way I was once abandoned. The work is in rewriting the story, piece by piece, so that my future is not dictated by my past.

It wasn’t my fault. That truth frees me from shame.

It is my responsibility. That truth calls me into action.

And in that space—between what I couldn’t control and what I can—I find the possibility of transformation. My healing doesn’t erase what happened, but it builds something new out of it. A life where I am not just surviving but thriving. A life where I prioritize myself without apology. A life where I don’t need to be who anyone else needs me to be—I can finally just be me.

And most of all, a life where I am a different kind of adult. A different kind of parent. Someone who breaks the cycle, who doesn’t pass the same pain forward, who chooses love and responsibility instead of avoidance and neglect.

It wasn’t my fault. But it is my responsibility. And in owning that, I don’t just heal myself—I change everything that comes after me.