You Learned to Survive
Now your body is asking to live.
You learned to survive by shrinking, striving, and controlling what you could.
For the mother who still feels at war with her body—
You’re not broken, love. You’re just remembering who kept you safe.
After the Candy
The days after Halloween always tell on us.
Candy wrappers cling to the counter like confetti that forgot the party ended.
A plastic pumpkin grins from the corner, half-empty, fully loud.
The house is quiet, but inside, the old hum starts up:
numbers, rules, bargains.
The tug-of-war between the mother I want to be
and the parts of me that are still scared.
We know this place.
I used to think the answer was to shush it.
Be stronger. Be better. Be grateful.
But gratitude never out-yelled the voice that kept me alive
when life felt like too much.
If that voice had words, maybe it would sound like this:
I Am the Voice You Learned to Survive
(a note from the part that protects)
I came when you were small
and there was no map,
only a table where love wore conditions
and silence passed the salt.
I counted because counting was safer
than feeling.
I measured because measuring was praised.
I learned hunger could dress up as virtue,
and control could pass for care.
So last night, when your girl
spilled laughter and Skittles in equal measure,
and reached for more—
I flinched.
Not because I hate her joy,
but because I remember the cost of “more.”
More attention. More comments.
More ways to be wrong.
I’m not your enemy—
I’m your alarm system.
I only know one language:
tighten, shrink, protect.
I kept you from drowning
when no one noticed you were underwater.
Don’t ask me to stop without showing me
there’s a shore.
I don’t trust soft.
Soft was the moment you were punished
for wanting.
Soft was the time you believed
you could take up space
and learned you couldn’t.
I’m the one who made your world smaller
so you could survive in it.
You call me cruel.
I call myself loyal.
If you’re going to lay me down,
lay me down gently.
Teach me a safer job.
Tell me we won’t be punished
for fullness.
Show me we’re allowed to stay
when we are not small.
Until then, I’ll count.
It’s the only way I know
to keep you here.
When I finally let this part speak,
I heard it for what it was—
not a monster to slay,
but a guard dog who’d never been told the war was over.
The next morning, my body answered back.
A Small Scene at the Kitchen Sink
Morning light slants across the counter.
A candy wrapper catches it and flashes—gold, then quiet again.
The kettle hums. My stomach answers with a small, honest ache.
An old thought moves in fast:
Careful. You can’t trust hunger. Last time you did, it got you in trouble.
I pause with my hand on the counter.
Another truth arrives, softer but steady:
I asked for dinner. You gave me rules.
Rules did what they were built to do.
They kept me inside the lines.
They also kept me lonely.
From the living room, I hear my daughter narrating her candy trades to no one in particular.
The sound makes the first voice bristle:
If she eats more, we’ll lose control.
And something in me—maybe the part that’s been learning to stay—offers a different plan.
What if safety today isn’t control, but care?
What if we try something tiny?
Coffee. Eggs. Toast.
Later, at snack time, a few chocolate squares on a plate next to sliced pears.
No bargaining. No penance. Food, on purpose.
The old voice hesitates. And if it goes wrong?
Then we do what families do.
We repair. Not punish. We repair.
I set the kettle to boil. The house exhales.
The pumpkin bucket grins from the corner like it knows—
today, we try a gentler map.
I used to think healing meant silencing the voice.
Now I think it means sitting with her at the table
and giving her a different job.
Guardian, not warden.
Lookout, not lockdown.
Because the truth is, this part didn’t show up last night to ruin me.
She showed up because Halloween is chaos and joy and sugar and noise and freedom—everything that once felt dangerous when love and safety were rationed.
She’s not the worst part of me.
She’s the oldest.
And old habits don’t unlearn themselves by force;
they soften in relationship.
The house feels lighter now—
not fixed, but softer,
as if even the air knows
we’re learning a new language together.
If This Is You After Halloween
If you’ve spent the days after Halloween already calculating—already planning to “make up” for it, already negotiating with your coffee—friend, I’m with you.
We’re not broken for feeling this way.
We’re simply wired for survival in a life where we’re finally safe enough to want more than surviving.
Here’s what helps when the noise gets loud:
Name who’s here. “A protective part is here. My body is here. My wise, steady Self is here.” (Naming isn’t fixing. It’s widening the room.)
Offer tiny structure. Permission and predictability: breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks. Candy can have a place. So can you.
Trade punishment for repair. If you feel wobbly later, you didn’t “mess up.” You met a younger part. Circle back. Nourish, rest, reach out.
Borrow a line. I keep this in my pocket: “Thank you for keeping me safe. I’m safe now. You can rest.” I say it as many times as I need to.
And for our kids—the ones we’re so afraid of failing—remember: their relationship with food isn’t built in a night of candy. It’s built in a thousand ordinary moments of being seen, fed, and allowed to be human with us.
We don’t have to be perfect to give them that.
We just have to stay.
The Shift I’m Practicing
For years, the days after Halloween meant spreadsheets in my head—
subtract this, add that, earn back, disappear.
Today, the practice is smaller and somehow braver:
I eat breakfast.
I make eye contact with my girl when she shows me her favorite wrappers.
I place mini-Snickers on the counter at snack time, and also slice pears.
I listen to the part that wants to clamp down—and I put my hand on my chest instead.
“I know why you’re here,” I tell her. “You kept me alive.”
Her shoulders drop. She doesn’t leave—not yet. But she sits.
Sometimes, that’s enough to change the room.
If You Need Words Right Now
You can borrow mine:
Dear protector, I know you came to help. I know chaos used to mean danger.
Today, chaos looks like candy wrappers and sticky fingers and my child being a child. Today, safety can be bigger than control.
We can eat and be loved.
We can feel full and still belong.
You don’t have to stand guard alone anymore.
I’m here now. We’re here now.
Read it out loud if it helps. Whisper it if that’s all you can do.
You’re Not Late. You’re Just Finally Safe Enough to Feel It.
If this hits a bruise you don’t often show, that makes sense.
Mothers aren’t told we’re allowed to have parts.
We’re told to be one thing: grateful.
But healing isn’t a performance. Its presence.
It’s letting the oldest part of you unclench her fist
because she trusts the hands she’s handing you to.
The days after Halloween, we practice.
Not perfection. Not payback.
Just breakfast. Just breathe.
Just the quiet bravery of staying with ourselves
when it would be easier to leave.
I’m proud of us.
A Gentle Invitation
I’m curious, friend—when your old protector voice shows up this week,
what would it sound like to answer her with care instead of control?
Maybe that looks like a meal you don’t overthink.
A moment of repair instead of punishment.
A deep breath before reacting.
Whatever it is, it counts.
Every small softness is a kind of rebellion.
If you feel like sharing, I’d love to hear what gentler looks like for you in the days after Halloween.
We’re learning together.
With you, in it.