"Who Saves Us: Going Back for the Child We Left Behind

 💛 Trigger Warning 💛

This piece contains deeply personal material involving childhood trauma, emotional abuse, abandonment, and inner child work. It revisits moments of profound vulnerability and may be intense or activating for some readers.

This is the most vulnerable piece of writing I have ever shared publicly. Please read with care. Pause if you need to. Step away if your body asks you to. Your safety and emotional well being come first. 🤍

If this brings anything up for you, you are not weak for feeling it. You are human. And you are not alone.

Who Saves Us: Going Back for the Inner Child We Left Behind

💛 It’s Going to Be OK. 💛

I see him first the way I always do. Seven years old. Small. Curled inward on the edge of my childhood bed, his feet not quite touching the floor. The room is dim and frozen in time, holding the kind of silence that only exists when a child has learned that crying does not bring help. He is crying anyway. Quietly. Bravely. Alone.

I move toward him slowly, instinctively careful, the way you are when you know someone has already been hurt too many times. I kneel in front of him so we are eye to eye. His hands are clenched, white knuckled, gripping the edge of the blanket like it is the only thing keeping him anchored to the world. I gently take Little Danny’s hands in mine, feeling how small they are, how much tension they carry.

He looks up at me through wet lashes, eyes swollen and searching, and asks in a voice that barely makes it out of his chest,

“Does it get any better?”

I squeeze his hands, grounding both of us in the truth.

“Not for a long time, little buddy,” I say softly. “I’m sorry. It doesn’t get better for a long time.”

His face crumples. He closes his eyes and the tears come harder then, rolling down his cheeks without resistance. I release his hands and cup his face instead, holding him the way he should have been held all along. My thumbs brush away tears that never should have had to exist. I trace the familiar curve of his eyebrow, memorizing him, honoring him. I stay. I do not rush him. I do not leave.

Then the scene shifts.

We are sitting on the front steps of my dad’s trailer. The metal is cold beneath us. The air is heavy with summer heat and something worse. The weight of waiting. Little Danny sits beside me now, knees pulled to his chest, staring down the long gravel road. Every car that passes makes his heart jump. He is waiting for my mom to come pick us up. He is sure she will. She always does.

The door opens behind us.

My stepmother’s voice lands like a verdict.

“She doesn’t want you. She doesn’t love you. If she loved you, she’d be here.”

I feel him freeze. His shoulders stiffen. His eyes stay locked on the road, refusing to look back, refusing to let himself cry in front of her. I reach for his hand and this time he lets me hold it. His fingers tremble in mine.

“You’re not alone,” I whisper. “I’m right here.”

Time drags on. The sun lowers. The road stays empty.

He finally turns to me, confusion and shame mixing in his eyes.

“Why didn’t she come?” he asks.

I turn toward him fully. I take his face in my hands so he cannot look away when I tell him the truth he was never given.

“Your mother loves you more than anything,” I say. “She didn’t come today not because she didn’t want you, not because she didn’t love you, but because she couldn’t afford the gas to get here and back. And that broke her heart.”

His breath catches. Something inside him loosens.

“She is going to be the one person who always loves you,” I continue. “The one who always comes back for you. You were never unwanted. You were never unloved.”

He leans into me then, finally letting himself cry. Not the quiet careful crying from before, but deep sobs that shake his chest. I wrap my arms around him and hold him the way he should have been held. I let him feel my heartbeat, steady and strong. Proof that he survives. Proof that he makes it out.

After a while, he pulls back and looks up at me with something new flickering behind his tears. A tiny spark of belief daring to exist. He asks the question that has followed him everywhere.

“Does anyone end up saving us?”

“Yes,” I say without hesitation.

He searches my face, needing more.

“Who?” he asks.

I smile, soft but certain.

“We do,” I say. “We grow up. We survive everything that tries to break us. We learn the truth about what happened and why. We become the person you needed. And we come back for you.”

I pull him closer, holding him against my chest.

“You can come live with me now,” I tell him. “I won’t leave you. Ever.”

And for the first time, he believes it. 🌱

💛 For You, Reading This 💛

Here is what I want you to understand about this practice.

The most powerful part of healing is not moving forward and pretending the past no longer matters. It is going back. It is returning to the exact place where the trauma originally started. The bedroom. The trailer steps. The moment you learned you were not safe. And sitting there with yourself.

Not as the terrified child who had no choice but to endure it. But as the adult who survived it.

You go back and you stay. You become the witness. The protector. The voice of truth that was never there before. You sit with your younger self in that unbearable moment and you do the one thing no one else did.

You do not leave.

You tell them the truth. You hold them. You let them know they are not bad. Not broken. Not the reason any of this happened.

And then the part that changes everything.

You tell them they do not have to stay there anymore. You give them permission to leave that place. You say, “You can come back with me now. You are safe. You are loved. You do not have to keep living in this moment.”

That is when healing begins. ✨

When you create a place inside yourself where your inner child is finally safe.

Finally held.

Finally allowed to rest.

This is not just imagination. This is reparenting. 🧠

This is rewriting the pathways that kept you trapped in survival mode.

This is you becoming the person you always needed.

You do not have to stay where the pain started.

You can bring that part of you home. 🏡💛