Born Tired: Where Survival Meets Healing

Eirene: [00:00:00] Every place I ever felt safe eventually became the place where I was violated, and I don't think people realize what that does to you, not just in your mind, but in your body. Because when your safest places become unsafe, you stop trusting everything. Not just people but comfort. You don't trust joy. You don't trust peace.

It teaches you this belief that doesn't even have to be spoken out loud. If I feel okay, something bad is coming. You stop letting yourself fully relax. You stop settling into good moments. You stop letting happiness in because deep down, you're waiting for the moment it gets taken away.

And what made it even harder for me is that it didn't just happen once. It happened over and over in different places, with different people, in spaces that were supposed to feel safe. So my nervous system started connecting the dots in the only way it knew how, safety [00:01:00] leads to violation. Joy leads to punishment, and that's how you end up living on guard even when nothing is happening, even when everything looks fine. Because when peace has been interrupted enough times, you stop believing it's real.

You start believing it's temporary, like it's a setup. And that's what I wanna talk about today. Not just the abuse, but what it does to you when the places you loved, the places that once felt like escape, become unsafe too.

This is Born Tired, Where Survival Meets Healing. A podcast for those of us who grew up in survival mode but are 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 reflections on childhood trauma and [00:02:00] sexual abuse. If at any point you need to pause or step away, honor that. Your wellbeing matters more than finishing the episode. Take care of yourself while you listen. You are not alone.

There's something I've been trying to put into words for a long time, and I think this is the simplest way to say it. Every time I felt joy, every time I felt safe, it eventually led to being violated. That pattern didn't just hurt me in the moment. It rewired the way my body understood safety. It taught me that peace doesn't last, and that joy is never just joy, that eventually it turns into something else. Because for me, it didn't matter where I was. It happened in my own home with my grandfather, a place that was supposed to be mine, a place that was supposed to be protected, but instead it became the first place where I learned what it means to be unsafe.

And then there was my grandmother's home. I love being around my grandmother, being with her, felt calmer, [00:03:00] softer. It felt like a break from the chaos at home, and I love being around my cousins too. The house felt like the closest thing I had to normal until I was abused there too, by another family member. And what makes it even worse is that it didn't only hurt me, it took something from me because after that, the house wasn't safe anymore.

Even though she was still my grandmother, even though I still loved my cousins, it was like my body couldn't separate the love from what happened. And that's what abuse does. It doesn't just hurt you. It contaminates places that once felt good. It turns comfort into danger. I had someone else in my family, someone that I love seeing, someone that I truly look forward to.

A relative who made me feel seen. They made me feel important like I mattered, and I remember always being excited to see them until one day I was violated by a man living in that home. [00:04:00] So again, a place that used to feel warm became another place I had to protect myself in. Another door, that closed another place, my nervous system stopped trusting.

By the time that I was 12, I had already experienced harm from multiple men in my family, and even now, it's hard to fully process that. It brings up a lot when I think about it because when I picture myself back then I see a little girl walking into rooms not knowing if the adults around her were actually safe.

Not knowing who she could trust, and that does something to you. It changes the way you move through the world before you even understand why. There was someone else who became part of my life back then.

A neighbor. I grew up in an apartment building and looking back, there was something really special about that. There were kids my age living there. We went to the same school. We grew up together [00:05:00] in a way that felt close, almost like a family. The neighbor I'm talking about had nieces and nephews that also lived in the building.

So it wasn't just her. It felt like a whole little community. People looked out for each other. There was a sense of being known, of being seen. She was older, a college student. My parents never really did activities outside of family functions. So when she came into my life, it felt like I finally got to experience things other kids got to experience. She was kind to me. I looked up to her. I saw her like a big sister. She took me to my first movie. We saw Charlie Chaplin. She took a group of us to New York City during Christmas, we saw the Rockefeller tree. We went to FAO Schwarz, the Plaza Hotel. My favorite was when we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I still remember walking through those rooms like, wow. Like it was just incredible.

The art, the history, the [00:06:00] feeling of being surrounded by something bigger than my life. It felt like she was opening a door to a world I didn't know I was allowed to enter. And I remember thinking, this is what life is supposed to feel like. That kind of joy sticks with you when you've lived without it.

One day I went to go look for her at her apartment. I knocked on the door. Her father answered, he opened it, told me to come in. I went in the apartment because I assumed she was home. He knew why I was there, and he closed the door. And when I started walking towards her room, he said, oh, she's not here.

So I turned around and I went to go straight to the door. He blocked me and he groped me. I pushed him off of me and I ran out of the apartment. And just like that, that place wasn't safe anymore either. The building, the hallway, the door, even the idea of going over there, it all felt contaminated after that. And what I carried from all of it wasn't [00:07:00] just fear, it was this belief that my body had learned to live by. If I relax, something bad will happen. If I feel happy, it won't last. If something feels safe, it means the danger hasn't shown up yet. So I stopped letting myself fully settle. I stopped trusting good moments. I stopped trusting people, and I started watching everything even when nothing was happening.

Because when your safety is repeatedly taken from you, your body starts to believe that being safe is a setup. And it takes a long time to unlearn that. And I wanna be honest about something, I still struggle with that now. Even when something good happens in my life, I don't always fully take it in.

There's still a part of me that gets scared too, because I'm already anticipating something bad coming. It's like I can feel the shift before anything even happens, like I'm bracing for it. I can have [00:08:00] the most amazing thing happen to me today. I could win the lottery today, and within days I will start feeling down and I'll start getting ready for something bad to happen. It feels like a cycle I'm still trying to understand. I have this internal conversation with myself trying to remind myself of what's real. Trying to stay grounded in the present, hoping that eventually my body will catch up and let me experience joy without fear.

There's another layer to it too. There are still parts of me that struggle with worthiness. That are still untangling the conditioning I grew up with the part of me that learned to feel like the scapegoat, like I was the problem.

So even now I find myself reminding that part of me I deserve good things too. What I've learned is that when you grow up being violated in the spaces that we're supposed to feel safe, the harm doesn't stay contained inside the moment, it spreads. It seeps into your relationship [00:09:00] with comfort, with belonging, with joy, and most of the time people don't see that part.

They understand the obvious trauma, the bad thing that happened, but what they don't always understand is what happens after when the abuse starts shaping how your body interprets the world. Because for me, I didn't just learn that some people can't be trusted. I learned something deeper, something that followed me everywhere. That safety doesn't last. When you experience violation in your own home, you lose the basic foundation that most people build their identity on. The assumption that home equals protection.

Then when it happens again in the care of people you love like a grandparent's home or around cousins, or in spaces that feel like an escape from chaos, your brain starts to make connections that aren't even conscious. It's not because you want to, but because your nervous system is trying to keep you alive.

It starts thinking in patterns. [00:10:00] Every time I feel okay, something bad follows. Every time I let my guard down, something happens. Every time I'm happy it gets taken. And eventually you stop trusting peace because peace starts to feel like the moment right before harm. And that's one of the most isolating parts of this kind of trauma.

Because on the outside, people may see you surviving. They may see you functioning, even smiling. But inside, inside, you're constantly scanning, constantly bracing, constantly preparing for the shift. You're not fully present in your own life because some part of you is still trying to prevent what already happened. And this is where I want to be really honest. This kind of trauma doesn't just create fear. It creates grief that people don't talk about enough. Because the grief isn't only for what happened to you, it's for what was stolen from you.

It's for the version of you that could have felt light. It's for the childhood moments that could have stayed [00:11:00] innocent. It's for the places that could have remained comforting. When your joy becomes unsafe, it creates this quiet heartbreak where even good memories start to ache.

And it's not because the joy wasn't real. It's because the joy became attached to danger. So you can't even look back without your body remembering what came next. This is such a specific kind of loss and I don't think survivors get enough compassion for it because from the outside it can look like we're overthinking, but it's not overthinking, it's conditioning.

It's your nervous system. Learning through repetition that relaxation is not safe. And when that becomes your normal, it changes how you love. It changes how you receive kindness. It changes how you enter rooms, relationships, and friendships.

Because when you've learned that safety turns into violation, you don't just feel harm you, you begin to fear closeness, you begin to fear attachment. You fear needing anybody at all, [00:12:00] and that often turns into hyper independence.

It turns into controlling your environment, controlling your emotions, controlling your expectations because you're trying to avoid the moment you realize that you trusted the wrong person again.

And maybe that's the hardest part, is how easy it becomes to blame yourself for that. You start thinking, why can't I just enjoy things? Why do I always feel like something is coming? Why am I tense even when everything is fine? Why can't I just let myself be happy? But if you grew up like this, it makes perfect sense.

Your body didn't learn safety through repetition. It learned violation through repetition. So of course, calm is gonna feel unfamiliar. Of course, peace doesn't feel stable. Of course, joy feels dangerous because your nervous system didn't believe joy was safe.

It believed joy made you vulnerable. And I need survivors to hear this [00:13:00] clearly. You are not broken for struggling to relax. You are not difficult for needing control. You are not ungrateful for not feeling safe In good moments, you were conditioned, you adapted, you survived, and the first step in healing isn't forcing yourself to trust where your body still fears. The first step is recognizing the truth. Your fear wasn't irrational, it was protective. It was the part of you that kept saying, don't forget what happens when you get too comfortable. That part of you deserves compassion because even though it could feel exhausting now, it was once the part that kept you alert enough to survive.

And what healing asks of us isn't to shame that part. Healing requires of us to thank it and slowly show it something new. To create safety in ways we control , to build safe experiences that are consistent, to learn little by little that the present is not the past.

It's not by rushing [00:14:00] ourselves. It's not by pretending we don't feel it, but by rebuilding trust in ourselves. Because the deepest healing isn't just learning to trust other people again, it's learning that even if something happens, you will protect yourself now that you're not the child trapped in silence anymore, that you can leave, that you can speak, that you can choose yourself, and that is what begins to loosen the grip this trauma has on joy because the past no longer gets to decide what your body is allowed to feel.

When you've lived through the kind of pattern I'm talking about, where joy gets followed by violation, where comfort gets interrupted, where safe spaces become unsafe. Your body doesn't just carry the pain, it carries the anticipation, the waiting, the constant sense that peace is temporary.

And if that has been your experience too, I need you to know this. There is nothing wrong with you for struggling to feel safe in good moments. Your nervous system is doing what it learned to [00:15:00] do because when safety has been taken from you, enough times your body starts acting like happiness is something you have to guard, because you learned over and over that happiness can make you vulnerable, and that is such a heavy way to live.

It's exhausting to always be scanning, to always be bracing, to always be calculating whether this moment is real, or whether it's just the calm before something breaks. And what makes it even harder is that the world often doesn't recognize this kind of trauma response.

People expect healing to look like confidence, like positivity, like moving forward. But what if healing actually looks like something quieter? What if healing looks like sitting in a peaceful moment and resisting the urge to sabotage it? What if healing looks like letting yourself enjoy something without immediately paying for it with guilt?

What if healing looks like taking one deep breath and realizing nothing bad happened this time [00:16:00] because that's how it started for me, not with some big breakthrough, but with small moments where you allow your body to experience something different.

And I wanna make room for the truth that this can be complicated, because when you grow up in survival mode, joy can feel strange. Sometimes joy doesn't even feel safe at first. It can even feel like you're doing something wrong. Like you're forgetting something, like you're letting your guard down.

So if you find yourself feeling sad after happiness, if you feel tense during calm, if you struggle to fully enjoy what you've worked so hard to create, I want you to stop asking what's wrong with you and start asking a different question, what happened to me that made my body respond this way? Because when we shift that question, we shift the shame and you deserve healing that doesn't demand you to abandon your truth. You deserve healing that makes space for your nervous system to take [00:17:00] its time. You deserve healing that honors the fact that your body has been through a lot.

And I wanna say something else. Something that is deeply important. There is a difference between forcing yourself to trust and building safety slowly. Some people preach healing like it's an instant decision. Like you wake up one day and declare yourself free, but that's not how trauma works. Trauma doesn't just live in your thoughts, it lives in your body, so it makes sense that you can intellectually know you're safe and still feel unsafe. It makes sense that you can be in a healthy relationship and still panic when things get too calm. It makes sense that you can have a good day and still feel like something is coming and you don't need to punish yourself for it. You don't need to rush yourself out of it. You don't need to perform strength for people who have never had to rebuild safety from the ground up, because that's what you're doing.

You're rebuilding [00:18:00] safety, not as a concept, but as a lived experience. And I know that feels unfair. It is unfair. But I also want to name what's powerful about that. When you rebuild safety, you're not just healing, you're reclaiming.

You're reclaiming your right to feel good without fear, to laugh, without flinching, to rest without bracing for impact. You're reclaiming your right to exist in peace without waiting for someone to destroy it. And that reclamation is sacred. It may be slow, it may be messy, it may come in waves, but it is real.

And if nobody has told you this lately, let me tell you now, you deserve safe joy. The kind of joy that doesn't require you to shrink, the kind of joy that doesn't demand silence. The kind of joy that doesn't put you at risk. And if your body still doesn't fully believe that yet, that's okay, because healing doesn't require you to force [00:19:00] belief.

It asks you to practice safety, to practice softness, to practice letting a peaceful moment last five seconds longer than your nervous system wants it to. And maybe that's where we start. Reminding the fearful parts of us, we're not there anymore. We can protect ourselves now. We can speak now, we can leave now. We can choose ourselves now. And that changes everything.

You are someone who survived the loss of safety and is still learning how to feel it again. And that takes courage, that takes strength, and that takes time.

If this episode resonated with you, please share with someone who may need it. And take a moment to leave a review wherever you listen. Your review helps more people find the podcast and reminds others they're not alone. Don't forget to subscribe or follow the show so you never miss an episode. You can also join me on substack, where I share weekly reflections and gentle reminders to help you feel less alone [00:20:00] on your healing journey. You'll find the link in the show notes. If you'd like to connect beyond the podcast, you can find me on Instagram at Born Tired Podcast.

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This episode was written and narrated by Eirene Torres Audio production by Carlos Torres. Original music composed by Carlos Torres.