Unlearning What Raised You
Mental Health Awareness Month 2026 Series:
The Benefits of Your Existence
In every household in the world, a little boy or a little girl is asking themselves, “Why do I matter?” Some of these children have everything they need. Some have very little. But no matter the conditions, no matter where they are in the world or in their development, that question grows louder with time. Maybe this child was you.
That question doesn’t disappear with age. It evolves. It moves from the corners of childhood bedrooms and playgrounds into adult relationships, into workspaces, into quiet moments when the world goes still, and there’s no one left to perform for. What started as a question is now a negotiation. Then a pattern. Then, for many, a quiet soreness that doesn’t have a name—but shows up in everything: in who they choose, in what they tolerate, in how they speak to themselves when no one is listening.
As a child, I had two parents in the household who taught me two very different things. One taught me unconditional love that felt like sunshine. The other taught me that silence meant safety. Both forced me to grow. Most of us were not taught to feel like we mattered; we were taught to behave as if we did. And if your childhood was anything like mine, you learned early—often without words—that love could be conditional, that attention could be withdrawn, and that survival sometimes meant adjusting, disappearing, or becoming who you needed to be to stay connected, seen, or even chosen.
And then you grew up, and the question shifted to, “Where did I learn that I didn’t matter?”
Growth, for many of us, wasn’t expansion. It was an adaptation. We became fluent in reading rooms, anticipating moods and shifts, softening our voices, and overextending our hands. We learned how to accommodate everyone but ourselves, and how to carry things—expectations, projections, unresolved pain. Much of it was passed down through the lineage without explanation or interruption. And so, the inheritance of trauma continued—quietly, consistently, generationally.
The real work begins here.
Most of us know that, at some point, growing up requires more than aging. It requires awareness, engagement, and discernment. Growing up asks us to pause every few years, look at where we currently are, and the life we’re building ahead. It asks us to assess what we’ve learned, and why. These questions aren’t about blame; they are about clarity.
The more you grow up, the more you realize that none of us is easy to be with. We all suffer from something. We’re all carrying something: anxiety, past traumas, insecurities, fears. The journey of becoming is messy. It’s complicated. It’s human. It’s not about finding someone without baggage; that person doesn’t exist. It’s about finding someone willing to unpack alongside you. Real love, real friendship, real connection, is not about being easy to be with. It’s about choosing each other, flaws and all, every single day. It’s about creating a safe space where you both can be unapologetically human.
We’re all works in progress. We’re all a little hard to be with sometimes, and that’s okay. We are not unified by perfection. We are unified by our shared imperfections, our shared struggles, and our shared humanity.
In this season of your very adult life, accountability is paramount to your growth. It is about returning to self, not self-punishment. It is the moment you recognize that while you did not choose who and what shaped you, you are now responsible for what continues through you. The patterns, the responses, and how you abandon yourself before anyone else gets the chance—are more learned behaviors than moral failures.
Now, you must unlearn what you learned.
The benefits of your existence are not things you have to earn retroactively. They are not waiting for your perfection. They are not dependent on how well you’ve performed your healing. The benefit of your existence is this: you are still here—able to see clearly, able to choose differently, able to continue your growth.
But you must do the work. As Maya Angelou once said, “Nothing will work unless you do.”
You lived through things you didn’t understand. You adapted as your own first responder in ways that kept you safe. You carried what you had to carry.
Now—everything is different.
Now you have language. Now you have awareness. Now you have a choice. Because the moment you begin to understand that love does not have conditions, that silence does not keep you safe, and that disappearing does not exempt you from accountability—something shifts.
Something grows.
Sit with that for a moment—not to judge it, but to understand it.
When we grow up, we realize that life is far more substantial than we imagined. It teaches us that being present—fully present—is the heartbeat of living. That the words we choose carry weight. Honoring our choices, especially with those we love, is a form of self-respect. That the storms we survive don’t just pass through us—they change us, stretch us, reveal us in ways we never could have anticipated.
And that survival—whether anyone acknowledged it or not—is evidence of something powerful:
Your existence has always mattered.
Not when you got it right.
Not when you were chosen.
Not when you proved your worth.
It mattered when you were overlooked. When you were silent. When you were mistreated. When you were simply trying to make it through.
Your growth—whether at 25 or 75—is not delayed.
It is the beginning of everything.
And this time, you get to choose what grows.
Tuesday Morning Love, healing the heart one word at a time
Mental Health Awareness Month 2025:
