Returning to the Child I Was Before the Wound

When you stop living in rebellion… when you stop trying to prove you’re not what someone else imagined you to be… something strange and quiet begins to happen.

A question starts to emerge:
Who am I, then?

Not the person shaped by survival.
Not the one acting out of defiance.
Not the reaction to someone else’s control, neglect, or projection.
But me.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve been slowly stripping it all back.
And underneath it all, something surprising has started to surface.

I like dogs.
I love my son.
I like people, even if connection has felt hard.
I like football.
I still love Manchester United — just like I did when I was a kid.

That last one hits in a different way.

As a child, I loved United. I was good at football. Really good. But my parents never bought me a kit. Not once. Not because they couldn’t — they had the money. But because they didn’t want to. My cousins would give me last season’s kits, and that’s what I had. I was never allowed a proper one. And I think I know why now.

My mum hated that I was good at something.
Because she wasn’t.
Because she never played sport.
Because she was jealous.

It’s a brutal thing to realise — that a parent can envy their child. That they can withhold love, attention, or even a football shirt, just to avoid seeing you shine.

And yet, here I am, in my thirties… buying United shirts for fun.
Because I want to.
Because I can.
Because it heals something.

That moment — that small act — is me reparenting myself. Not as a concept, but as a felt experience. A quiet reclaiming of joy, agency, and dignity.

It doesn’t fix everything.
It doesn’t undo the past.
But it reminds me of something I never stopped needing to know:

That I’m allowed to love what I love.
That I matter.
That my childhood self was never the problem.

I’m not just trying to become someone new anymore.
I’m trying to return — to the child I was before the wound.
And give him what he was always worthy of.

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