State of Emergency

There is a strong bitter irony of tea in being asked by family about a plan just in case if there is “a state of emergency?”; especially when growing up, I learned the hard way that I couldn’t count on them for survival. When the very people who were supposed to be my safety net instead chose to teach me “lessons” through deprivation, how could I possibly turn to them in times of a real crisis?

I remember like I am still in the moment of the cold, how it sank deep into my bones like an unwelcome truth. It wasn’t just the winter air that chilled me; it was the realization that the people who were supposed to protect me were actively making me suffer. They took my coats away…not because we were poor, not because they couldn’t afford to keep me warm, but as a calculated punishment. “You think you’re so tough?” they said. “You’ll see just how the world really is.” The world is how you have been to me. Do I love you? Yes I do but it has it’s limitations. I think about the loneliness of calling for help from the other one and being disregarded. I remember growing up in a time when groups of adults brushed off other adult actions with “oh that’s just how they are” without taking a moment to see why I was creepily quiet and fearfully obedient.

It was a lesson, a way to show me how bad the world really was. Maybe they wanted to break me down, or probably to make me more dependent on them, or to prove to themselves that they had ultimate control over my well-being. But all it really did was reinforce a message I internalized at a very young age: No one is coming to save you and with that I became hyper independent and highly resourceful. I learned to survive in spite of them, not because of them. Sure we had our good moments and I learned from there but I also knew those good moments would be incredibly short lived; so I paid attention very closely. In the winter, I learned to layer whatever scraps of clothing I had, to keep my body moving to generate heat, to endure the pain of fingers that should have been frostbitten; and yeah I pretended it didn’t bother me but I barely weighed 120 lbs so yes I was cold. I learned an unintended lesson they did not plan for. I was tough and resourceful and in the way they did not want me to be.

Hmmm in the state of an emergency. I remember the journey of grappling with childhood trauma as a complex and deeply personal odyssey. For many years, I bore the weight of a painful public secret; no child should endure and yet I had to navigate the tumultuous waters of healing without any support and I truly did it alone. This does not include the mockery that came along with it. The realization that the very people who were supposed to shield and protect me were either oblivious or unable to acknowledge my pain was a harsh reality to accept. Rather than a safe haven, my home felt more like a silence-filled cocoon, where I learned to hide my truth behind a veneer of normalcy.

The emotional turmoil was overwhelming. I often felt isolated, battling inner demons that whispered damaging lies about shame and unworthiness. It was a lonely struggle, where coping mechanisms became my lifeline and i worked so hard on myself so well that a therapist gave me accolades in our first meeting; because of how resilient I was and am. I resorted to journaling, art, meditation, asking myself the hard questions in the mirror, rebuilding myself, loving myself; and it turned out to be my refuge, allowed me to express feelings that were too intense to articulate verbally. These practices provided a canvas to externalize my pain and began the slow, arduous process of reclaiming my narrative; maybe that therapist was right I took myself further than they had seen any client did without help.

Despite the absence of beneficial support, I discovered a reservoir of resilience within myself. It was not an easy path, and many days felt like climbing mountains of despair, but I committed to healing for the sake of my future. I sought therapy when I was ready, and it was during those sessions that I began to unpack the emotional baggage I had carried for so long. My therapist, with her compassionate understanding, acknowledged my journey and celebrated my courage. Hearing them affirm my strength felt monumental; it validated my struggle and illuminated the progress I had made. I taught myself that i needed to understand that the pain I endured did not define who I was. Instead, it fortified my spirit and my essence, helping me to emerge stronger and more self-aware. The accolades from my therapist weren’t just commendations—they were reminders of my resilience and capacity to heal.

Now we fast forward to adulthood, and suddenly, these same people who once deprived me of warmth now want to discuss emergency preparedness ask “What would you do in a state of emergency?” “Who would you come get?” “I’d make my way to you” they say. The audacity is staggering. Survival has never been a theoretical conversation; it was my reality. I survived because I had no other choice. And now, when we are all faced with the possibility of real danger from a natural disaster, economic collapse, civil unrest; they suddenly want to strategize with me, the person they left out in the cold? Would they expect me to rush to their aid? To share my supplies? To offer them shelter in the storm? Do I wish them harm? No, but how can I see them as a stable resource for survival.

I don’t have to imagine what I’d do in a crisis, because I’ve already lived through my own private states of emergency. When you grow up knowing that your basic needs can be stripped from you at any moment, you learn to prepare for the worst long before others even consider it a possibility. I learned to think ahead, to stash away essentials, to keep my own escape routes in mind—whether that was a physical route out of a bad situation or a mental strategy to endure suffering until I could get out. I learned to remain calmer than most people when something is happening; heck that part of me still remains when a married man 3 times my size lifted me up by my head from behind to tuck me away from people who would intervene. I am still physically healing from the injury because of it; but I remained calm and quiet like a storm while I thought out everything I needed to do and could do fighting against someone 3 times outside of my weight class.

Emergency preparedness isn’t a hobby for people like me. It’s not about stockpiling canned goods for an apocalypse I might never see. It’s about the instinctive understanding that no one is obligated to take care of you and that, in many cases, the people who should be your safety net are the first to let you fall. Yes, stock up on dry goods like pasta or rice and if you can water, batteries, solar powered items because we have that technology nowadays; do what you must but when you live in survival mode all the time it is so difficult to turn it off. Do I have some vague plans based on my location? Yeah but not everyone is included. Would I check up on them? Yeah, but I am not staying.

I can hear them asking before they ask “What Would You Do in an Emergency?” And I think to myself “what would I do in a state of emergency?” I would do what I’ve always done: Survive.

But would I come to them? I can help briefly. Would I extend the same care that they denied me? Thought crosses my mind. Would I risk my own well-being to ensure theirs? Hmmmm. That’s where the question turns back on them. Because when they ask, “What would you do in a state of emergency?” what they’re really asking is, “Will you take care of me?” And that answer is different.

Survival isn’t just about having supplies and an escape plan. It’s also about knowing who to trust, who to align with, and who to leave behind. And when someone has already shown me, time and time again, that they’re willing to let me freeze to teach me a lesson, why would I assume they wouldn’t do the same when the stakes are even higher? Would they share with me if our roles were reversed or just be a trap? Would they protect me if I were vulnerable and what kind of price would I have to pay for it? How genuine is it?

When someone betrays your survival as a child, it rewires the way you see the world. You don’t grow up with the luxury of blind trust and a bucket full of optimism. You learn to scrutinize motives, to read between the lines, to anticipate danger where others see safety; it becomes a hyper fixation. And the cruelest and funniest part is? They don’t even realize the damage they’ve done. They ask about emergency plans as if their past actions are irrelevant, as if the trust they shattered should be rebuilt without acknowledgment. They think time alone is enough to erase the lessons that were burned into me.

But I remember.vI remember the cold. I remember the hunger. I remember the realization that my well-being was conditional and granted when convenient, revoked when it suited them. And so, when they ask about emergency preparedness, I answer in a way that they may not understand, but that is deeply honest.

I have a plan.

But that plan doesn’t include them in the way they would like.

In times of crisis, we are forced to decide who we want by our side. And while some might say that blood is thicker than water, I say that trust is thicker than both because “The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.”

Being related by blood doesn’t entitle someone to my protection. Shared history doesn’t erase past harm. When you’ve shown me that I can’t count on you when the stakes are low, don’t expect me to count on you when the stakes are life and death.

I will survive. That much, I know; because of how there was a time that I was watched to suffer just to prove a point.