Why Do I Do It to Myself?

21 December 2025

The Kitchen Floor

I collapsed on the kitchen floor, crying while washing up.

Not a tidy cry. Not a “have a minute and pull yourself together” cry.
The kind where your body gives up because it’s held too much for too long.

And what triggered it wasn’t a siren or a court letter.

It was a parcel.

Two parcels, actually, two moments, two versions of me.

The first arrived two weeks ago and broke me.
The second came on Friday, opened on Saturday morning — and that’s the one where something finally shifted.

Why Do I Do It to Myself?

I know I’m the one who keeps stepping back into the minefield.
I know I shouldn’t care.

But I do.

This is raw, personal, and unfiltered.
It’s not about police, paperwork, or proving reality to people who weren’t there.
It’s about being exhausted from holding everything together to protect the very people who caused the harm.

Two Weeks Ago

The knock came.

I was asked why I didn’t refuse the delivery. But that wouldn’t have been fair to my child.

Two weeks on, I’m wondering if that advice might have saved her some sleepless nights.

I recognised the handwriting instantly. I’d anticipated it, but I still believed she deserved more — a call, a message, an effort. Something real.

I took the parcel as if it were harmless.

A present.
For my child.
From his side.

But it wasn’t harmless. It carried history, absence, and grief that doesn’t fit in a parcel.

There was someone on that side I once trusted deeply — someone who felt like family. Leaving didn’t just end a relationship; it ended the safety I thought came with that wider family.

I wanted to believe love for an innocent child would cut through everything.

It didn’t.

Over the course of six months of contact, they saw her only once or twice. No consistency. No relationship.
Yet for years I tried to build one.

Children don’t bond with absence.

The Wrong Name

Then I saw the card.

The name was wrong.

My child clocked it instantly. Her face dropped.
It wasn’t a typo; it was a message. A reminder of why she was so distressed over the summer.

And what did I do?

I made it okay.
I softened it.
I buffered the impact.

Because that’s what I’ve always done.

The Video I Talked Her Into

Then came the video.

She didn’t want to send one.
It wasn’t dramatic — just a quiet, firm no.

And she’s five.

Five.

Already learning that adults expect children to bend to make adults feel better.

Still, I encouraged her.
Not for her — for them.
For the memories they chose not to be part of.

I went back to the sink like nothing had happened.

And then my body gave out.

I slid onto the tiles and sobbed, my nervous system finally dropping the pretence.

And then I did what I always do: I blamed myself for being triggered.

I manage triggers well — until one gets through the armour.

The Truth He Tried to Twist

I built a blog to survive.

A few months ago, my ex tried to take that too.

One video. No face. No name. No identifying details.
But it showed abuse.

Instead of accountability, he tried to silence me.

Then came the absurd part:
He blamed my blog for his admission to a mental health unit.

Before he even knew the blog existed.

His timeline didn’t match reality.

That’s not truth — that’s strategy.
Narrative control.
Rewrite cause and effect.
Make me the problem.
Make him the victim.

Meanwhile, I have two teenagers who have been supported for trauma for two years.

That’s what matters.

I want nothing to do with him ever again.

What I fear every day is what he will do to our child.

And so does she.

Why I Keep Timelines

Because reality gets rewritten.
Details “go missing.”
People suddenly don’t recall.
Records get vague.

And the person holding the truth gets painted as unstable for remembering.

But the hardest part isn’t the adult stuff.

It’s my child.

The fear in her body.
The night terrors.
The way trauma shows up in sleep, panic, and clinging.

Some details I won’t share here — not because they didn’t happen, but because they need to be preserved for future DARVO attempts.

The Second Parcel

Then it happened again.

Another parcel.
Another wrong name.

This time, I followed professional advice:

Stop protecting other people. Protect your child.

I thought I was shielding her by making excuses.

I wasn’t.

I was shielding adults from consequences.

This one was from her dad.
Again, the card centred him — his feelings, his narrative, his self‑pity.

And the hook:

“I don’t know if you will even get this.”

A sentence designed to plant a story.

“Do I Have Two Dads?”

She asked me this out of nowhere.

Not because she doesn’t know the truth — she does.
But because children sometimes rewrite safety in their minds.

It wasn’t about romance.
It was about reassurance.

This Time, I Didn’t Make It Okay

I asked if she wanted to send a video.

She said no.

I’m not raising children who feel obligated to perform gratitude for adults who haven’t shown up.

She worked it out herself.

And I honoured it.

The teddy replaced an old one she no longer plays with. She didn’t want them to be “friends.”
That’s how trauma lives in children — in objects, associations, tiny rules their nervous system creates to stay safe.

And again, the card wasn’t written for her.
It was written for him.

This time, I didn’t smooth it over.
I didn’t hide the words.
I read them as written.

The Night Terrors Returned

Months without one, and then suddenly, they were back.

The fear that I might die.
That I might leave her.
That she’ll be alone.

We know where that fear came from.

Triggers aren’t always loud.
Sometimes they’re a parcel.
A wrong name.
A sentence designed to paint me as the villain.

But here’s the difference:

I didn’t lose sleep this time.

I offloaded to my mum.
I let someone else hold it for a moment.
And then I let it go.

Because my child is happy.
She is confident.
She is allowed to be herself.

And I didn’t force her to perform a video for adults who haven’t shown up.

The Sad Reality

Adults should own their behaviour.
No one is perfect.
She is five — safety is paramount.

With every week that passes, she knows his family less.
That’s not cruelty, that’s time.

I can’t carry guilt that isn’t mine.

A professional told me something I needed to hear:

I was confusing protecting my child with protecting adults from consequences.

Making excuses wasn’t shielding her.
It was teaching her to tolerate minimising.

So I’m stopping.

I will protect my child — not other people’s comfort, image, or narrative.

Her wishes will always be respected.
Her voice will always be heard.

If those who stood by and supported the abuse wanted a place in her life, they had their own voice.

Time is passing either way, and I’m done apologising for refusing to waste it.

If You’re a Victim Reading This

• Triggers don’t always look like chaos.
• You don’t have to make it okay for adults.
• Children say “no” with their faces long before their mouths.
• Watch for victim-positioning lines — phrases like “I don’t know if you’ll get this” are narrative planting.
• Document privately.
• Offload to safe people.
• Boundaries are safeguarding, not bitterness.

What I Know Now

Maybe growth isn’t “I never get triggered.”

Maybe growth is:

I got triggered.
I collapsed.
I cried on the kitchen floor.
I hated myself for it.

And then I changed what I did next.

I stopped translating harm into something polite.
I stopped making excuses.
I stopped managing other people’s feelings at the expense of my child’s safety.

No more performances.
No more persuading my child to make adults feel better.

If anyone wants a place in her life, they earn it with consistency, effort, and respect — including her name.

Protecting her is the job.
And I’m done apologising for doing it.