Stolen Life

My traumatic experiences and illness frameworks stole my life from me, not in one violent strike, but bite by bite over long, dragging years. Childhood stretched like taffy—days that would not end, clocks that mocked me with their slow‑motion tick. I thought adulthood would be the finish line, the moment of freedom. Instead, I learned that time itself was a trickster: the bad hours lingered, the good ones vanished, and whole years dissolved in a single blink.

I was a curious soul, hungry for knowledge, eager for love, aching to leave fingerprints of light on the world. Yet I kept myself hidden in the shadows, ducking below radar, curled in the panic‑room of my own mind. Safety was a simulation—walls made of fear, rationalized by worst‑case mathematics. I thought if I imagined every possible disaster, I could control them, bargain with them. I bet against joy, because risk felt unbearable.

But obstacles multiplied when I fought them. Doubt grew teeth. Safety turned into a snare.

Life is nothing if not a web of human encounters. Each face, each voice, is a mirror, a chance to learn how to live. My world, like yours, is stitched together by people. But where others walked freely into those connections, I stood apart, convinced the worst could come at any moment. And in the end, it did—not because I was wrong, but because fear itself, braided with those traumatic frameworks, stole what joy had not yet been allowed to arrive.

Remixed 2 August 2025