There are moments when people reach out in ways that feel more like performance than connection — a quick post, a surface-level gesture, something that looks like concern but doesn’t actually touch the heart of what I need.

My inner child wants to cling to those gestures, to revel in them, to take whatever scrap of attention is offered. But my adult self knows the truth: this isn’t real connection. These aren’t people worth investing time into. Maybe they never were. And part of growing is learning to let go, to stop chasing what doesn’t nourish me.

I think back to my childhood, and I still don’t fully know how I survived it. It was miserable, lonely, with zero safe adults. There were countless points where my life could have ended — or where I could have been imprisoned if my manic responses to unbearable truths were judged differently. Mania wasn’t some flaw inside me; it was an extreme response to extreme circumstances — the shattering realisation that I had never been loved or supported in the way a child needs.

The fault lies with my parents. They chose to have children, yet my mother never had any desire to love them. I believe my father might have had good intentions at first, but my mother — consciously or not — wanted children as a way to ease her own pain, to look after her. That is a selfish reason to bring someone into the world. And I lived with the consequences of that selfishness.

And yet… here I am.

I’m alive. I’m a solid, balanced father. I’m in college. I’m moving forward in every aspect of my life. Yes, I can be unorganised. Yes, my space can be messy. But if I zoom out and look at the bigger picture, the progress I’ve made is astonishing.

I don’t have as much connection as I would like. But I do have enough. And I’d rather have a few real connections than a flood of superficial ones. The more I accept that truth — that most people aren’t worth my time and energy — the more my mental health grows stronger.

There has been so much suffering in my life. But the silver lining is my resilience, which is honestly unbelievable. To get up and keep going, to have endured everything I’ve endured, to still be here building something meaningful… that is strength.

And I can finally say it: when people talk about strength, I see myself.