Introduction:
For those of us who have walked through the pain of childhood without denial, and broken the cycle of reenactment, life can feel like exile. Most of humanity lives trapped in projections, transferences, and idealizations—unaware they are still obeying the unspoken rules of their childhood prisons.
Besides Alice Miller, I’ve never met another human being emotionally free. But I often wonder what it would be like if I did. Here is a story born from that wondering.
The Meeting: When Two Free Souls Finally Speak
“In a world still ruled by the reenactments of unloved children, we were not at war.”
I had long stopped hoping to meet another. Not out of bitterness—but clarity. To be emotionally free is to live outside the dreamworld of family loyalty, cultural obedience, and polite lies. It's not a club. It's a wilderness.
So when I saw him sitting there—eyes not clouded, spine not bowed, face open in a way I had only ever seen in the mirror—I felt a jolt. Like meeting a reflection not distorted.
He turned to me gently.
"You've seen it too," he said.
I nodded.
"Since I was a child. But no one could bear it."
He smiled.
"And you bore it alone."
We stood in unspoken agreement and began walking. No rush. No performance. The silence between us was not empty—it was full. The kind of silence that only exists between people who no longer need to prove their worth.
We walked through the trees. The scent of earth rising. Children laughed in the distance, their cries unfiltered, still alive with need. No one told them yet to "be quiet." Not yet.
"Do you remember the first time you broke the spell?" he asked.
"The moment you saw your family for what it really was—not what you were told it was?"
I nodded.
"I was seven. My teacher hit me with a ruler for not reading properly. My mother said I must have deserved it. That I was probably being ‘difficult again.’ In that moment, I realized love in my world came with conditions—and those conditions were: silence, obedience, invisibility.”
He stopped walking. Looked at me without flinching.
"I was twelve. My father slapped me because I said I didn’t believe in God anymore. My mother cried—but not because of the slap. She cried because I had embarrassed her. That’s when I knew no one was going to protect me—not even from him. Especially not from him.”
We continued walking. Slower now.
"And that’s when you start protecting yourself," I said.
"Not with fists or bravado—but with truth. Even if you have to live in exile to keep it.”
“Exile is better than living among the blind and pretending to be one of them,” he said.
“I'd rather walk alone with open eyes than be welcomed in a house built on denial.”
We stopped by a low stone wall, overgrown with ivy. He ran his hand along it slowly, like touching an old scar.
“Sometimes I wonder what it would’ve been like to be seen as a child,” he said.
“To be met without projection. To be loved without having to betray myself.”
“I used to wonder too,” I told him.
“But I stopped. That longing belongs to the little girl who waited. And I’ve stopped waiting. I’ve chosen to stand with her now, as the adult she needed all along.”
He nodded. And then, for the first time, I saw it in his eyes—tears, unashamed.
Not the kind that beg. The kind that honor.
We didn’t hug. We didn’t say thank you.
The truth didn’t need decoration.
We sat on the stone wall as the sun sank low.
Two people, once alone in the world, now simply together.
Not to rescue each other. Just to share the peace that comes when the war inside has ended.
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