Writer’s Note

A story about the weight of shared beds, full rooms, unspoken boundaries, and what it means to finally breathe.

A personal reckoning with space, suffocation, memory, and what it means to rebuild a home within myself.

P.S. It’s quite a long read.

Part One: An Unfinished House

Where It Began – Closeness, Space, and the First Taste of Suffocation

There was no such thing as personal space in our house. We all slept in one bed; my mom, my sister, and I, in a one-bedroom house that didn’t leave room for separation.

I was very young then, and I think at the time it felt like safety, or at least what safety looked like back then.

I was always in the middle. I suppose I was protected in that middle space, even though the bed was sunken and uncomfortable.

It wasn’t luxurious comfort, but it was all I knew, and in that way, it felt familiar. Held. Maybe even loved.

But as I grew older, the struggle for personal space, for my own identity and independence, became more pronounced.

Something started to shift.

The safety of closeness began to feel more like suffocation. It was no longer comforting; it was constricting. There was no space to move freely, no space to turn or stretch or sprawl in the way children sometimes need to.

I remember how frustrated I would get, asking my mom or sister to shift just a little, to give me room.

It wasn’t just about sleeping; it was about breathing. And it’s that same feeling I recognise now, in adulthood, when someone holds me too long, or lies too close for too long.

That same quiet panic, that internal plea:

“Just give me space.”

This lack of space wasn’t just physical; it was emotional. It made me feel trapped and unheard, like my needs didn’t matter.

Looking back, I think that’s where the suffocation started. Maybe not the physical kind, but the emotional kind.

The kind where you can’t turn without bumping into someone else’s need.

The kind where your discomfort has nowhere to go.

The kind where even expressing a need for space is met with a wall.

The Room We Couldn’t Have

Later, when we moved to Pretoria to the house that was still unfinished, we slept in the garage, which had been converted into a temporary room.

There was another room in the house with a better bed, a more spacious bed. But we weren’t allowed to sleep there.

My sister and I asked. We pleaded. We said we just needed more room.

But the answer was always no.

And eventually, the bed in that room became storage, covered in clothes and other items my mother had hoarded. I still don’t know why she wouldn’t let us have that space.

What I do know is: I asked for space and was denied.

I said,

“I need room.”

and was told,

“No.”

So, I learned not to ask.

I realised that even when you’re clear,

even when your needs are simple and small, the answer might still be no.

That your needs might be seen as inconvenient.

That space and autonomy could be something reserved for others,

but not for me.

How I Learned to Tolerate It

As I grew older, I developed a habit of staying up late, often until 2 or 3 a.m. The TV was always on, providing a distraction.

I would only go to bed when I was utterly exhausted, ensuring that I would fall asleep as soon as I lay down.

This method allowed me to avoid the discomfort of being confined to a bed I didn’t choose, in a position I didn’t want, and instead, I could enjoy the relief of immediate sleep.

It wasn’t just about sleep. It was about the delay.
There was a specific relief in delaying the discomfort, a hope that if I could postpone it long enough, maybe I wouldn’t have to feel it at all.

Sometimes, I’d sit in another room; just exist there for hours, so I could claim some kind of solitary space, even if no one had given it to me.

This was my way of creating a boundary, even when the house didn’t allow for it.

My boundary was time. My rebellion was quiet.

But it was real, and it was empowering.

Where This Lives in Me Now

That feeling of having no room to turn, stretch, or be alive in my body still appears when someone holds me for too long, when a room feels crowded, and when a partner cuddles me too long.

It’s not about them, it’s about that little girl whose needs were small but denied.

Who wanted a different room but was told no.

Who asked for space on the bed and was asked to shrink instead.

That girl is still here. She’s asking for space again.

And this time, I think she’s ready to say yes.

I’ve realised the importance of emotional boundaries and the need for personal space.

It’s not about rejecting others but about prioritising my well-being.

When There Was No Room. Not Even for Me

It wasn’t just the bed.

The whole house felt full.

Full of things; things we didn’t need, things that should have been donated, thrown out, or let go of.

But my mom didn’t let go. She kept everything.

And as the years went on, the house became a repository for things: old clothes, bags, broken items, containers, boxes, until there was no space to breathe.

The house became a symbol of suffocation.

It was a house filled with objects; solid, unfeeling, immovable things that took up space no one seemed willing to reclaim.

And somehow, I had to adjust. I had to shrink.

There was no room to move freely, no clean surface to stretch out on, no floor without something on it.

When objects took space, I began to believe that I wasn’t allowed to take up space either.

That my discomfort didn’t matter; not compared to other people’s attachment to things that didn’t feel alive.

Shrinking Myself, Silencing My Needs

That’s how it started; the slow unlearning of self.

The belief that other people’s feelings, rules, and attachments mattered more.

That my body’s discomfort was inconvenient, and my needs were disruptive.

So, I learned to adapt.

To stay silent.

To find ways around instead of pushing through.

And even now, I still do it.

Someone recently came into my room without knocking. They crossed a boundary. And even though I didn’t say anything, even though I didn’t know it was a boundary at the time, my body knew.

I felt it.

A jolt of anger.

A wave of discomfort.

That same panic I used to feel in crowded spaces, on cramped beds, in homes packed with things that left no room for me.

And instead of speaking up, I locked the door, not out of spite.

Out of protection.

My body is learning to say no even when I can’t.

It’s teaching me what I deserve:

To feel safe.

To take up space.

To be allowed room to breathe.

Part Two: Soft Suffocation

Freedom Didn’t Exist, Not Really

When I think of freedom in my childhood, I don’t think of running outside or having my own space. I think of escaping. Not openly. Not rebelliously. But quietly. Secretly. Silently.

I stayed up until late.

Sometimes 2 a.m., sometimes 3.

Just to delay the discomfort of the bed, the noise, the feeling of being swallowed by everything and everyone.

Eventually, I found an alternative approach. I’d sit alone in a dark room with my earphones in, music loud, drowning everything out. The noise of the house, the energy, the pressure, the presence of others… it all faded when the music took over. I could finally breathe, finally, just be. I wasn’t pretending to be okay or making space for everyone else. I was just alone. And for those moments, I felt free.

That’s how I learned to escape.

And I still do it now, just in different ways.

When I’m overwhelmed or suffocated, whether by a room, a person, or an emotion, I leave. I walk. I pull away. I log off.

I disappear into silence. Into numbness. Into the distance.

That dark room in my childhood, the one with the earphones and loud music, became a template for how I manage emotional overload now.

I remove myself. I vanish.

The Earphones

There’s one moment I still remember clearly. I was in that dark room again, music blaring, shutting everything out. And my mom was calling me, but I didn’t hear her.

Eventually, she came in.

She was angry.

Said something like,

“I’m sick and tired of you and those earphones.”

And I must’ve snapped. I think I screamed.

I told my mom that I just wanted to be alone.

I remember saying it, or something like it; loud, desperate, and honest.

And I remember her reaction: she ripped the earphones out of my ears. Tore them apart. Walked out.

And I just sat there.

Frozen in my rage.

Heartbroken.

Angry.

Sad.

Silenced.

That wasn’t just about the earphones.

That was about everything I had no way of saying.

That was about my body crying out for space and solitude, only to be met with destruction instead of understanding.

I resented her.

I mourned those earphones like they were the only thing I had.

Because maybe,

in that moment,

They were.

The Freedom of Being Left Behind

When I tried to remember the first time I felt locked in, nothing came to mind at first.

Because I think I was never truly locked in, at least not with a key.

I was locked out.

The first time was when I went for a jog.

My mom thought I had gone to see a boy, the same one her partner had seen me with on Valentine’s Day.

I hadn’t. But it didn’t matter. She told me to leave.

With nothing.

No bag.

No money.

Just the clothes I had on.

I went to a friend’s house.

And that wasn’t the only time.

I was a teenager.

Depressed.

Numb.

Lost.

Sometimes I’d leave the house just to escape the weight of it all and come back after dark.

Not late, just late enough. After 7 p.m. in winter.

But by then, she would’ve already locked the house.

And I wouldn’t be let back in.

I had to make a plan.

Figure out where to sleep.

Where to exist.

Sometimes, I slept outside.

In the cold.

Calling my mom to let me in.

Knocking and Knocking

Scared.

Alone.

That’s when I became comfortable with darkness,

And being alone.

Locked Out, Locked In

I don’t think I’ve ever really been physically locked in, but I know exactly what it feels like because growing up in a house that’s crowded, chaotic, and emotionally unheld feels like being locked in.

There’s no air.

No space.

No room to stretch; not physically, not emotionally, not personally.

Being in that house was like being buried in someone else’s mess. In someone else’s rules.

There’s no freedom when you’re always holding your breath.

So maybe the fear of being locked in comes from rooms that feel like they’re caving in.

From houses where presence was everywhere but intimacy was absent.

From sleeping in places that weren’t built for rest.

From never knowing what a real home was supposed to feel like.

A Dangerous Kind of Freedom

And still,

The nights I was locked out?

The nights my mom didn’t care where I went or if I came back?

They gave me something else.

Freedom.

It was a lonely freedom.

A dangerous independence.

But it was mine.

There were no rules.

No noise. No one is asking me to shrink.

Not being cared for was painful, but somehow, not being watched was also a relief.

Not being checked on.

Not being controlled.

And maybe that’s the moment I started associating freedom with being left alone.

Not loved. Not seen. Just… unbothered.

And that felt better than suffocation.

Part Three: Always Shrinking

Craving Closeness, Fearing It Too

I don’t know when cuddling started to feel like too much.

But as we’ve said before, this isn’t a linear story.

We don’t always begin at the beginning.

We begin where it hurts.

And where it hurt the most was with him.

The one I’ve written about before.

He loved me gently.

He held me like he meant it.

He said,

“There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”

And I believe he meant it.

He wanted softness, closeness, touch.

He wanted to love and be loved; physically, emotionally, fully.

And I wanted that too.

At least, some part of me did.

Some part of me still does.

But every time we lay in bed, and he curled around me, even in the sweetest, softest way, I felt the edges of panic start to rise.

My body stiffened. My breath got shallow.

It didn’t matter that he was kind.

It didn’t matter that I loved him in my own way.

The closeness overwhelmed me.

I tried to move away, quietly, shifting my body toward the edge of the bed.

But he always followed, half-asleep and still wanting to be close.

I’d end up right on the edge, holding my breath, feeling that same old suffocation.

I asked him to move a few times.

And he did.

But I also think he felt rejected, as if I didn’t want him, as if I didn’t love him.

And that was not the truth.

I just didn’t know how to be loved in that way.

I wish I had told him.

I wish I had said:

“Cuddling feels like too much, not because I don’t love you, but because I’ve never had space. My body doesn’t know how to hold both touch and safety at the same time.”

Mirage Love

What I felt with him was like…

You know that thing in the desert?

When you look into the distance,

And you think you see water,

But it’s not water, it’s just light and heat; a mirage.

That’s what love felt like for me.

I could see it.

Almost touch it.

However, I couldn’t reach it,

So I couldn’t know it was true love.

I Crave It, Then I Flee

It happens over and over again.

I crave intimacy. I ache for it.

When it arrives, when someone meets me with softness or vulnerability, I panic.

I feel it in my body before I can name it in my mind.

Like I’m in a room with no windows.

Like I’m surrounded by people and can’t breathe.

Like, I just need space.

Fast.

That’s when I leave.

I shut down. I walk out.

I physically or emotionally disappear.

Sometimes both.

That’s what happened in my friendships, too.

One time, a friend and I had a misunderstanding. She wanted to talk. I couldn’t.

I needed time. I stayed quiet for weeks.

And by the time I reached out, she’d reached her limit.

That was the end of that relationship.

In another moment, not long ago, I asked a friend why she was treating me coldly.

I kept asking,

“What’s going on?”

She wouldn’t tell me.

I got so emotionally distressed, I stood up and walked out.

Walked until the feelings settled.

Until I felt like I could breathe again.

Until I felt like I was alone again.

If I Don’t Leave, I Might Break

That day when I walked out,

I didn’t say anything.

I just left.

I met her again later that morning and explained it the best way I could:

“Every time I feel the way I felt, I need to get away.”

That’s the only thing that works.

That’s how I get through without breaking anything, someone, or myself.

She said it made her feel like I didn’t care.

And I understood that. I really did.

But what I wanted to say, what I wish I could say to anyone I love, is this:

“When I leave, it’s not because I don’t care.

It’s because I do.

It’s because if I stay in that moment, dysregulated and distressed,

I don’t know what will happen to me, or what might happen to us.

Leaving is how I come back to myself.

It’s how I protect you, too.”

My psychiatrist says that the key is communication.

That I need to say, upfront:

“Sometimes I get emotionally overwhelmed.

I might need to step away to breathe, to regulate, to return to myself.

I just need you to know that when I do, I’m not abandoning you. I’m choosing not to abandon myself.”

I’m still learning how to say that.

I’m still scared that people won’t understand.

But I think I’m getting there.

When I Don’t Leave,

The Breaking

Sometimes I stay.

Not because I want to, but because I don’t know how to leave without consequence.

Because the last time I walked out,

I used a weapon I should’ve never reached for

My words.

Words that said,

“If you don’t leave me alone, I’ll tell the security you’re trying to hurt me.”

It was the only thing I could think of to make him let me go.

It wasn’t right. I know that now.

But I needed air, and panic doesn’t care about right.

So, this time, I stayed.

I closed the bathroom door.

I had nothing but a broken piece of glass, which I claimed was an accident.

It wasn’t.

It was deliberate.

Because I couldn’t run, I needed the pain to move. I needed something sharper than the ache inside me.

I needed something to interrupt the distress that was swallowing me whole.

So, I cut.

And I cut again.

And then he walked in.

And he cried.

He sat beside me, heart cracked wide open, begging me not to hurt myself.

He said he loved me.

That he couldn’t stand to watch me like this.

He put his pain down to hold mine.

And even then, I couldn’t stop.

Not right away. Not fully.

What people often don’t understand is that pain sometimes serves as a regulator.

The body doesn’t know what else to do.

It’s saying,

“I can’t carry this anymore.”

And one thing about pain

Is that it demands to be felt.

This is why I leave.

This is why I need to walk.

Because if I stay, if I don’t create space,

I will destroy things.

I will destroy myself.

When I flee, it is not an abandonment of others.

It’s the protection of me.

And sometimes,

Of everyone else, too.

Part Four: Rebuilding the House

Final Reflection: Pressing Play

I’ve been moving through adulthood with the fragments of my childhood trailing behind me,

Like paused videos, each capturing a version of me I never got to fully meet.

Not photographs. Not memories.

But videos.

Moving, breathing pieces of my younger self, all suspended mid-scene.

Each time I experienced something painful, I paused the tape. I walked away. I fled.

And then life would carry me into a new scene, a new fragment, and I’d press play again, but never on the same tape.

Now I’m realising the cost of that kind of survival.

It’s chaos. It’s instability.

It’s never knowing who I was before the next wound, the next silence, the next escape.

So, for the first time, I think it’s time to go back to the beginning. Not to erase anything or reframe it into something gentler than it was, because I can’t,

But to press play where I once paused.

By ‘pressing play’, I mean,

I want to go back to that very first fragment, the first little girl sitting quietly in the chaos,

And instead of pausing her story, I want to take her hand and guide her through the pain, step by step, moment by moment, memory by memory.
Not rushing. Not skipping. Just walking with that little girl.

This journey isn’t about rewriting the past.

It’s about healing the consequences of it.

It’s about building the house my mother never finished, the emotional home she couldn’t create for herself or for me.

I now know she may never finish building that house.

And that’s okay.

That house was never meant to be mine to complete.

I have my own foundation to lay. My own walls to reinforce.

My own rooms to fill, not with clutter or chaos,

But with quiet, softness, boundaries, safety, and space.

I can build it with stability. I can rebuild every paused child. Heal her. Sit with her.

And walk her home.

This is about creating a safe emotional space, a place where I can heal and grow.

To the child in each fragment:

I see you. I’ve got you. We don’t have to run anymore. I will not pause your story again.

We’re pressing play.

No more pauses. No more chaos. Just the slow, steady sound of healing.
Returning to the first fragment with tenderness, I am meeting each child I once was and walking with her, not running from her.

This time, I won’t flee. I’ll stay long enough to hold her hand, to say:

“I’ve got you now, and I accept you for who you are”.

This journey is about self-acceptance, about embracing every version of me I once abandoned.

The home I am building feels like a Sunday morning.

Jazz in the background.

Warm light spilling into the room.

Soft blankets. Soft pyjamas.

A space where my body can breathe,

Where I can sit with my feelings and not be consumed by them.

It’s quiet.

It feels like a place where I can love someone without the fear of closeness.

And in that quiet, I am learning that I can hold my own pain, gently, without handing it to someone else to carry.

This time, I’m not asking to be rescued.

I’m not shrinking.

I’m not fleeing.

I am choosing to stay with myself,

with my healing,

And with every version of me I once abandoned.

I am choosing to finish this house.

And I am choosing to live in it, in a place of peace and self-reliance.

I am pressing play.

Where it all started.

No pauses, this time.