You Weren’t Safe, So You Survived

Step 1 of The ABV Healing Map - a path for the ones who survived, and now want to live.

Some children grow up in war zones.

And some grow up in living rooms that felt just like them.

Not because there were bombs but because the body never felt safe.

The nervous system never got to rest.

There was no off switch. No real home.

And that’s where the story begins.

Not with jinn. Not with a diagnosis. Not even with a feeling.

But with what the body had to do to survive.

You became fast.

Quick to read the room.

Quick to adjust.

Quick to disappear before things got worse.

Sometimes quiet was safer than seen.

Sometimes achievement was safer than anger.

Sometimes making others proud was the only way to stay untouched.

This wasn't personality. It was protection.

You didn’t choose this.

You didn’t choose to fawn.

To numb.

To get good at sensing tension from a single sigh.

But your body did.

Because at some point in your story, safety wasn’t guaranteed.

So it became the job of your nervous system to get you through.

Moment by moment. Day by day.

You didn’t break.

You adapted.

This is how survival looks.

It doesn’t always look like trauma.

It looks like high grades. Like good manners. Like “never causing problems.”

But inside, it feels like shallow breath.

Tense shoulders.

A mind that won’t stop scanning for the next shift in tone.

No child is supposed to live like that.

Islam was there. But sometimes… so was fear.

Not of Allah but of disappointment.

Of getting it wrong.

Of being wrong.

Because when faith is delivered through stress, control, or shame……it gets absorbed by the same system that was already bracing for harm.

And yet...here you are.

Reading this with the eyes of someone who made it through.

Still here. Still standing. Still holding onto your Rabb...even if it’s just by a thread.

That matters.

Because it means you survived the first step.

And now… something new can begin.

You’re not weak.

You’re not broken.

You’re not behind.

You’re someone who learned to survive in unsafe conditions.

And now...you're learning how to live in safe ones.

This is the work.

The quiet, invisible, steady work of healing.

Welcome to Step 1.

We start where the pain began.

Not to blame - but to unburden.

Not to relive - but to release.

Not to hate the past - but to hold the present with open hands.

You’re not the only one.

And you never were.

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