Why Me?
I can’t help but be haunted by two words: Why me?
I don’t mean it in a self-pitying way. I mean it literally—
How did I grow up in the same house as my brothers,
And come out covered in scars while they walked away clean?
Why was I the one who broke open under the pressure,
Who cried, who crumbled,
Who carried shame like a second skin?
What makes me different?
I’ve turned that question over a thousand different ways.
I want a clean answer.
I crave the truth, even if it hurts.
Maybe it’s because I was neurodivergent and no one knew.
Maybe it was because I was sensitive.
Or a girl.
Or the middle child.
Maybe it was the religion—that cult-like belief system that wrapped around everything.
Maybe it was bad luck.
Wrong place, wrong time. Wrong kind of child for the life I was given.
But the truth—the stale, unbearable truth—is:
I don’t know.
And maybe I’ll never know.
I don’t talk to my family much.
They don’t really talk about the past.
Not the heavy stuff, anyway.
Maybe my brothers were spared.
Or maybe they just knew how to bury it better.
Maybe it didn’t hurt them the way it hurt me.
Maybe I was the easier target. The more visible one.
Too eager to please. Too open.
Too much.
Maybe I asked too many questions.
Or needed too much.
Maybe I wore my pain too loudly.
Or maybe I wore it so quietly no one noticed I was bleeding.
Maybe I don’t remember enough to be sure.
Or maybe I remember too much.
But I know this:
I was the one who cried too much.
Who didn’t bounce back.
Who couldn’t “just let it go.”
Who carried shame like dust in her lungs.
And even then, I remember thinking:
There must be something wrong with me.
Maybe that was the first wound.
Not what happened,
But the belief that it was my fault.
