I Hate My Inner Child (And Still, I’m Trying Not to)

I don’t want to admit this. Not because it’s taboo or dark or triggering. But because it makes me feel like a bad person. A broken person. One of those people who never figured out how to be soft with themselves. I want to lie and say I’m healing. I want to say I’m cradling my inner child in some imaginary sun-drenched meadow, whispering, You’re safe now. But that’s not what’s happening. Not even close.

What’s happening is I picture that kid, and I get angry.

I picture that kid—me—and I cringe. I see a needy little thing with eyes too wide and feelings too loud. Always wanting something. Always hoping. Always getting disappointed. I hate how desperate I was. How eager. How easily hurt. I hate the part of me that kept trying when the signs were clear: No one’s coming. I hate how much I still want things I never got. I hate that it still matters.

I know where the hate comes from. I can trace it like a scar. When you’re small and the people who are supposed to love you don’t—or can’t, or won’t, or only sometimes do—you learn to blame the most obvious person: yourself. You learn to see your needs as dangerous. Your softness as a liability. Your emotions as a trapdoor. You think, "If I were different, they would’ve stayed. If I were better, they would’ve seen me."

And so you build a life around the erasure of that child.

You get good at it. You learn how to be chill. How to not need too much. How to be funny and smart and self-aware enough that no one has to deal with your mess. You become someone who apologizes for crying even when you’re alone. You call it “high-functioning,” but it’s really just hiding in plain sight. Because god forbid anyone sees that kid again. That kid with the huge fucking heart. That kid who believed in people. That kid who felt everything.

I hate that kid because I’m scared of what they remind me of. All the times I wasn’t enough. All the times I was too much. All the times I needed love, and it didn’t come. I hate that kid because loving them means admitting it hurt. Still hurts. Because once I look them in the eye, there’s no pretending it was okay.

But here’s the thing: they never went anywhere.

No matter how many degrees I collect or boundaries I draw or toxic people I cut off or therapists I pay, that kid is still in me. They still show up. In every argument where I feel misunderstood. In every silence that lasts too long. In every moment, I want to run because getting close feels like a trap. That kid is in the room, trembling, asking, Are we safe yet?

And I don’t know what to tell them. I don’t know how to be the adult they needed. Some days I resent the hell out of them for even asking.

But I’m trying. God, I’m trying.

Not to love them in some abstract, performative way, but to stay. To sit with their sadness without rolling my eyes. To let them cry without trying to fix it. To whisper, Yeah, that really sucked, instead of, You’re being dramatic. To stop blaming them for surviving in the only way they knew how.

I want to stop treating them like the enemy.

I want to stop punishing the part of me that still wants to be held.

I want to stop acting like growing up means abandoning every tender part of me that didn’t make it out clean.

I don’t know how long it’ll take. Or if I’ll ever fully get there. But this is me, not turning away. This is me, trying. Even if I still flinch. Even if I still hate them sometimes.

This is me, sitting in the dark with the kid I swore I’d never be again.

And not walking out.