Right now, I feel six years old.

Not metaphorically. Not spiritually.
Just… truly and physically six years old.
I don’t want advice. I don’t want encouragement.
I just want to be held.

That’s it.
That’s the ache I carry through my adult body like a silent echo.

And so I wrap a blanket around myself and pretend it’s arms.
Because there are no other options.
And I know, as I’ve always known: if I wait for someone else to come and rescue me, I’ll stay waiting forever.

People say things like “do your inner child work” as if it’s light or cute.
But what if your inner child was never loved?
Not mishandled or misunderstood—but actively, consistently unwanted?

How do you return to a part of yourself that’s known nothing but rejection?

The truth is, I don’t think most people can understand what that’s like.
Even therapists. Even people who care.
Unless they’ve lived it—the constant, quiet exile from the very people who were supposed to hold you—they can’t fully feel what this is.

They see the behaviours:

  • Overeating
  • Porn
  • Shutdown
  • Anxiety
  • Overreaction to minor rejections

But they don’t see the root:

“I was never chosen. Not once. Not fully. Not freely.”

I look composed on the outside. I function well.
But I carry this grief in every room I walk into.
I feel the stress rise in supermarkets, in public spaces, in classrooms—places where other people might feel mildly irritated, I feel unsafe, unanchored.

Because those were the places I was dragged through as a child while surrounded by unspoken tension, shame, resentment.
My body learned: “We are not safe here.”
Even now, my watch tells me I’m stressed—before my mind even catches up.

And still, I try to offer myself something different.

I say to the little boy inside me:

“You’re not crazy for wanting to be held.
You’re not needy. You’re not weak.
You’re just remembering what you never got.”

And even though it hurts, I sit with him.
And I try to listen instead of shut him down.
And I wrap the blanket tighter.
And I remind him, even in silence:

“I see you. I’m here. I won’t abandon you.”

This is what real healing looks like.
Not polished. Not perfect.
Just a grown man learning how to hold the child no one else held.

And maybe that’s enough for tonight.