I learned the rhythm of fear before I ever learned to form full sentences. I could read a room by the weight of a breath, the shift of a shadow, the sound of a shoe hitting tile just a little too hard.

Before I knew the alphabet, I knew how to stay small. I knew which floorboards creaked and how to avoid them. I knew when silence was safety and when it was the warning before a storm.

My body became my first language. Flinching was not weakness. It was instinct. It was survival in a house where emotions arrived loud and forgiveness rarely followed.

Most kids memorize lullabies. I memorized escape routes. I trained my senses to respond before my brain could catch up, because early on I learned that being caught off guard could cost more than a scraped knee.

You don’t forget that kind of learning. It stays in your spine, in your reflexes, in the way your jaw tightens when a voice rises too fast.

That’s what people don’t understand. I didn’t grow into this hyper-awareness. I was raised in it. Nurtured by it. Survived because of it.