Born Tired: Where Survival Meets Healing

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Eirene: Growing up, I heard a lot about protection, about how girls needed to be careful, how we needed to behave a certain way, how attention could change everything. There were conversations about modesty, about reputation, about the importance of staying respectable. Protection was framed as something delicate.

Something that could be lost easily. Something that depended on how well girls followed the rules placed in front of them. And those rules were clear, how we dressed, how we carried ourselves, how we interacted with boys, how quickly we were allowed to grow up.

The responsibility for safety was placed squarely on us, on our behavior, our awareness, our ability to prevent something from happening. But as I got older, something about that message began to feel incomplete because protection as it was explained to me was mostly about control.

Control over how girls looked, [00:01:00] how girls behaved, how girls presented themselves to the world. What no one spent time talking about was responsibility on the other side of that equation. Who was responsible for respecting boundaries? Who was responsible for creating environments where children were actually safe?

Who was responsible for intervening when lines were crossed, those conversations didn't happen. And for a long time I didn't have the language to explain why that imbalance felt so unsettling. I just knew that the lessons about protection didn't match the reality I was experiencing. It would take me many years and a lot of distance for me to understand that difference. And once I did, the idea of protection started to look very different.

This episode is about that realization, about the difference between protection that is performed and protection that actually exists, and about how those early lessons shaped the way I understood [00:02:00] safety, responsibility, and accountability for years to come.

This is Born Tired Where Survival Meets Healing. A podcast for those of us who grew up in survival mode, but ready to heal and speak our truth. I'm Eirene. A cycle breaker, learning what peace feels like after years of survival. Every episode is an invitation to rest inside your truth, to feel seen, and to remember you are never alone. This is what it sounds like when silence finally breaks.

Before we begin, I want to share a gentle reminder. This episode includes stories and reflections about childhood trauma and abuse. Please listen in a way that feels safe for you. If at any point you need to pause or step away, honor that. Your wellbeing matters more than finishing the episode. You are not alone. Take care of yourself while you listen.

When I look back now, what stands out isn't just the rules themselves, it's the irony behind them. How much energy went into guarding girls, how little went into teaching [00:03:00] respect, how protection became about restriction instead of responsibility, how fear was used as guidance, while accountability was rarely mentioned.

I didn't understand it at the time. I just knew that the messages didn't line up with what I was seeing, the warnings I received didn't reflect where the real risk lived. That the lessons about purity didn't come with lessons about boundaries, that silence was often mistaken for safety. This episode is about that contradiction, about what it means to be warned about the world outside while being left unprotected from what exists closer to home, and about how those early lessons shaped the choices I made later, including the decision to create distance, to break patterns, and to raise my family differently. Talking about this isn't easy, but it's honest and honesty is where my story begins.

Growing up, there were strict rules about my body. No lipstick, no nail polish. [00:04:00] Not until I was like 15 or 16. If my godfather or one of my uncles saw me or any of my primas with either it always led to a lecture about respect, about modesty, about staying innocent. They said it was about protection.

I wasn't allowed to sleep over at any of my friend's house because they would say "Uno nunca sabe", you never know what could happen in other people's homes. So I stayed home and as an adult I understand why that rule existed. I don't allow sleepovers for my children either. Not because I believe the world outside our home is uniquely dangerous, but because my own childhood taught me something difficult about how harm often happens. Predators rely on opportunity. They rely on access. They look for moments where supervision is limited and trust is assumed. That's a reality many survivors understand deeply. My boundary comes from that awareness. The difference is that I don't frame it as protection through restriction alone, I talk to my [00:05:00] children about boundaries, about consent, about trust. I talked to them about listening to their instincts.

What no one ever named was that the environment they warned me about wasn't outside of our family. It already existed within it. There were adult men in my family who shared rooms with me, men who were trusted, men who were considered safe, men who violated that trust.

I grew up hearing comments about my friends that crossed boundaries, comments by grown men, about girls who were still children. No one corrected it. No one stopped it. No one acknowledged how inappropriate it was. It was treated as normal behavior.

I know that when some people in my family hear this, they'll feel uncomfortable. Some may act surprised, some may insist it wasn't that serious, but they know what I'm talking about. I'm not saying every man in my family behaved this way. They didn't. [00:06:00] But there were enough instances, enough moments, enough to make the rules about lipstick and nail polish feel painfully ironic.

There was so much focus on controlling how girls looked, on appearances, on purity while harmful behavior went unchecked. They warned us about dangers that might exist elsewhere while overlooking what was already happening inside our own homes and within our extended family. That contradiction stayed with me. It's one of the reasons I chose distance as an adult.

I remember being pulled aside by one of my tias when I was a little girl and given a lecture about girls being like flowers, that once a flower is plucked, it can be put back. That was the metaphor. The message was clear even if the language was softened. My worth was something fragile. Something that could be damaged, something that needed to be guarded. What I didn't hear in that lecture was anything about responsibility on the other side, there was no [00:07:00] conversation about teaching boys how to respect boundaries.

No lessons about accountability. No emphasis on how men should treat girls and women. All the weight was placed on us, on how we dressed, how we behaved, how we protected ourselves. The focus was always on preserving girls, not on shaping men. What that meant in practice was something quieter , but just as powerful.

It meant that girls learned how to monitor themselves well before we learned how to trust our surroundings. We learned to sit in a certain way, to cross our legs, to adjust our shirts if they shifted. To be aware of who was in the room and how we were being seen, even as children. It meant becoming aware of your body before you fully understood why, and at the same time, boys were being introduced to a completely different set of expectations.

I remember people asking my male cousins, if they had girlfriends yet, laughing about it, [00:08:00] encouraging it, but girls weren't asked those same questions. Not me, not any of my primas. For us, relationships weren't something to explore. They were something to avoid, something that could damage us. I remember moments where adults would comment on how a girl was growing up. Not in a celebration type of way, but like an observation. The tone would change slightly. Eyes would linger a little longer, and suddenly their responsibility would shift without anyone saying it out loud.

You were expected to be more careful now, more aware, more modest, but no one ever explained what exactly you were being careful of. That ambiguity stays with you. You begin scanning rooms, not because anyone taught you to do that directly, but because something in the environment taught you that awareness was necessary. You begin noticing things children shouldn't have to notice. Which adults made certain jokes. Which ones stood too close. Which comments were brushed off as humor and which ones made the room go quiet for a second before everyone [00:09:00] pretended nothing happened. Those moments were rarely addressed. They passed quickly, almost like a small ripple in conversation that people chose not to examine, but children notice those ripples. We may not have the language for them yet, but we feel them. We remember who laughed. We remember who stayed silent. We remember the adults who changed the subject. Over time, those small moments start to form a pattern.

A pattern where discomfort is acknowledged privately, but rarely corrected publicly. A pattern where everyone understands something's off, but no one wants to be the person who names it. Literally I've had women, when I was little, tell me "ten cuidado con ese", like, be careful with that one. They wouldn't explain it. You just know you need to be careful around this man.

As an adult, I think about this and I'm like, why was he even allowed to be in the same house as me? Why was he allowed to be in the same room as me? So you guys are well aware that [00:10:00] this man is not safe, but you choose to be silent about it.

And that silence becomes its own kind of rule. As a child, you don't wanna make things uncomfortable. You don't challenge adults. You don't question what everyone else is willing to overlook. Instead, you adjust yourself. You become careful, observant, quiet. And from the outside it can look like you're mature and composed, like you're a well-behaved child who understands the rules. But what it really is, is adaptation. A child learning how to navigate an environment that doesn't fully protect her.

And the strange part is many of us carry those skills into adulthood. Hyper-awareness, emotional scanning, the ability to read a room instantly. People sometimes call that intuition. They call it wisdom, but often it started as survival.

So we learned early that if something went wrong, the question wouldn't be who crossed the line. It would be, what did she do? That way of thinking followed me for a long time, and now looking back, [00:11:00] I see how damaging that imbalance was, how it taught silence instead of safety and control instead of care.

It's one more reason I chose to raise my children differently with honesty, boundaries, and shared responsibility instead of fear disguised as protection. When I look back, what stands out isn't just what happened, it's how it was explained, or maybe more accurately how it wasn't.

There was always a lot of talk about protection in my family. But protection wasn't framed as responsibility. It was framed as restriction. Girls were taught how to limit themselves, how to shrink, how to manage perception.

Safety was something that we were expected to earn through behavior, and the more I sit with that, the more I see how damaging that belief is. Because when protection is framed that way, it shifts the focus away from the environment and places it squarely on the individual. Usually the youngest and the least powerful. It teaches girls that safety depends on how well they [00:12:00] follow the rules. That harm is something you avoid by staying small, careful, and compliant.

What it doesn't teach is accountability. What it doesn't teach is how adults shape the spaces children move through. What it doesn't teach is that safety isn't something children should have to negotiate. Instead, it creates a hierarchy where appearances matter more than behavior, and silence is rewarded as maturity.

That imbalance seeps into everything. It shapes what gets corrected and what gets ignored. It determines whose discomfort is taken seriously and whose is minimized. It teaches you which questions are welcome and which ones threaten the structure. And when those structures go unquestioned long enough, they stop feeling like choices.

They start feeling like truth. What's difficult to articulate is how normalized this all felt at the time. No clear lines drawn. It lived in every day in comments, in warnings, and what adults laughed [00:13:00] off and what they focused on. And because it was normal, it wasn't examined, but just because something's normal doesn't mean the dynamics are okay.

Normal can still be harmful, especially when it teaches children that their bodies are liabilities and their safety is conditional. One of the most lasting effects of that kind of upbringing is how often it trains you to turn inward instead of outward. You learn to ask, what did I do wrong before asking what line was crossed? You learn to monitor yourself before expecting adults to intervene. And over time, that becomes second nature. You stop trusting your instincts, you stop naming discomfort. You learn how to coexist with contradictions because challenging them feels dangerous. No one explicitly told you not to, but you understood the cost of doing so.

That's the hardest part to untangle as an adult. Not the rules themselves, but the mindset. They created a mindset where safety is fragile, [00:14:00] where respect is something that can be lost, where harm is treated as personal failure instead of a collective responsibility. And when you grow up inside that framework, you don't immediately recognize it as imbalance.

You adapt to it, you normalize it, you carry it with you into other spaces, schools, relationships, workplaces, until one day you start noticing how much labor you're doing just to feel okay. For me, distance created clarity. With time, I was able to see the pattern instead of just the moments. I was able to see how much attention was placed on controlling girls and how little was placed on shaping behavior around us.

How often fear was used as guidance, but accountability was absent. And once you see the pattern, it's hard to unsee it.

It forces you to ask different questions, not just what happened, but what kind of system allowed this to feel normal. That [00:15:00] question comes from awareness. It comes from realizing that silence doesn't equal safety and tradition doesn't equal protection. It comes from understanding that environments are created, intentionally or not, and children absorb whatever they're handed. This reflection isn't about assigning blame. It's about naming imbalance. It's about recognizing how easily concerned for purity can eclipse concern for responsibility, and how often the work of prevention gets placed on those with the least power to carry it.

What I know now is that real protection isn't about restriction. It's about responsibility. It's about boundaries that are enforced, not just discussed. It is about adults doing the work of shaping safe environments instead of outsourcing that labor to children. And that realization came to me through distance, through observation, through asking questions I wasn't allowed to ask as a child. There's a moment that comes after awareness, after the [00:16:00] naming, after the remembering when you're left with a question, not what happened, but what do I do with what I know now? Because understanding the pattern doesn't automatically undo it. And seeing the irony doesn't erase its impact. What it does is change how you move forward. For me, the work has been about learning how to separate fear from wisdom. Fear keeps you vigilant, it keeps you tense, it keeps you scanning for danger. Wisdom though is steadier. Wisdom understands that safety isn't created by control. It's created by clarity.

One of the hardest things to unlearn was the idea that protection has to feel restrictive in order to be real, that safety requires shrinking. That care comes with conditions, that being watched is the same as being held. It took time to realize that those things aren't interchangeable because real protection doesn't rely on fear.

It doesn't depend on silence, and it doesn't ask the most vulnerable people in the room to carry the [00:17:00] heaviest weight. Real protection is active. It's conscious. It shows up in boundaries that are enforced, in environments that are shaped with intention.

As an adult, I've had to sit with the grief of recognizing what I didn't receive. Moments where I noticed how much effort went into managing appearances, and how little went into cultivating accountability. That realization gave me choice, the choice to step away from systems that depend on silence, to stop normalizing what never should have been normal, and to redefine what protection looks like, not just for me but for the family I'm raising. That doesn't mean I have all the answers. It means I'm willing to ask different questions. Questions like, who benefits from this rule? Who carries the burden of this belief? Who is expected to adapt and who is never asked to change?

Those questions matter because they interrupt cycles that thrive on unquestioning tradition. They remind us that culture isn't fixed, [00:18:00] is shaped. And what was passed down can be examined, revised, or left behind. What I know now is that distance isn't always avoidance.

Sometimes it's discernment. Sometimes it's the space required to see clearly, to breathe fully, and to choose differently. Distance gave me perspective. Perspective, gave me language, and language gave me the ability to name what I once had to navigate without words. That doesn't mean the past stops existing, it means it stops dictating the future. It means I get to decide what lessons continue and which ones end with me.

Before I close this episode, I want to name something plainly. Talking about these things doesn't come from a place of comfort. It comes from clarity. I don't share these stories to make anyone uncomfortable for the sake of it. I share because silence was doing more harm than truth ever could, because when patterns go unnamed, they continue quietly, and when contradictions aren't [00:19:00] spoken out loud, they get passed down.

For a long time, I carried these experiences without language because there was never space to name them without consequences. Naming things changes that, what I know now is that awareness doesn't arrive with emotion attached. Sometimes it arrives with certainty. A knowing that says this wasn't right. This didn't protect me, this shaped me in ways I'm still untangling. And that knowing doesn't require permission. It Doesn't need consensus. It stands on its own. If parts of this episode felt familiar to you, I want you to hear this clearly. You're not imagining the imbalance. You're not overanalyzing it. You're not wrong for noticing that the rules didn't match reality. You're not imagining contradiction if the rules never felt aligned with reality. If the warnings didn't match where the risk actually lived, if you were taught to manage yourself instead of being protected, your confusion made sense.

There's nothing wrong with noticing [00:20:00] that. There's nothing disloyal about telling the truth, and there's nothing selfish about choosing a different path once you see the pattern clearly. This work isn't about rewriting the past, it's about reclaiming agency in the present.

It's about recognizing that safety built on silence isn't safety at all and that real care doesn't require fear to function. A lot of people grow up learning how to manage themselves instead of being protected. A lot of people are taught to confuse control with care, and a lot of people carry that confusion into adulthood. Talking about it doesn't make you disloyal, it makes you honest.

This episode isn't about rewriting anyone's story. It's about telling mine without softening it to make it easier to accept because the truth doesn't need to be minimizing. It just needs space to exist as it is.

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This episode was written and narrated by Eirene Torres. Audio production by Carlos Torres. Original music composed by Carlos [00:22:00] Torres.