Your Body Was Never the Problem
Step 2 of The ABV Healing Map - a path for the ones who survived, and now want to live.
Some kids didn’t grow up in danger.
But their bodies did.
That’s what no one tells you.
You can live in a house with four walls, regular meals, and still grow up bracing for impact.
And when no one comes to help?
The body finds its own way.
Mine chose fight.
From as early as I can remember, something would rise in me. A tension. A readiness. Like I was bracing before I even knew why.
If I felt wrongly accused, embarrassed, or physically threatened - my body would prepare.
Sometimes even before anger had a name.
Fear was often the trigger. But so was injustice, especially when it happened to someone I cared about.
The response? Rage.
Because that’s what worked.
When I got told off in school. Especially by the ones who humiliated more than corrected...I didn’t go quiet.
I pushed back. I couldn’t just sit there and take it.
There was one teacher... Mrs. Cassidy.
Just hearing I was being sent to her made my stomach turn.
But the moment she started shouting at me, I wasn’t scared anymore.
I was alert. Activated. On edge - defending something.
Maybe my dignity. Maybe something deeper. I don’t know.
And I carried that pattern for years.
It made me feel strong when nothing else did.
Because my anger carried weight. My body knew what to do.
And when it wasn’t me being hurt...when it was someone I cared for?
It was the same pattern. That bodily readiness. That sense that something had to be done.
Then came the rage. Then the action.
Like the time I was six, and my younger brother - only four - had his lunch taken by boys in my year.
I didn’t even think. I went after all four of them and made sure it never happened again. (secret...I didn't do any talking)
Funny thing is, they became friends after that.
Even started looking out for him.
I think my body learned something that day:
If I show strength, maybe the world will too.
But here’s what hurts:
People didn’t see protection.
They saw “the angry kid.”
The one with “issues.”
The one who needed to be sorted out.
I remember my parents telling me when I was about eight:
“You got anger issues.”
I didn’t know how to explain it back then.
I wasn’t angry by nature. I was reacting to what felt unfair, unsafe, or humiliating.
When I was wrongly blamed. Or punished harshly. Or corrected in a way that stripped me of dignity.
I just wanted fairness.
And if no one was going to offer it gently… my body would try to take it forcefully.
But here’s what’s changed.
Even now, I still feel it sometimes. That surge. That energy. That need to protect or push back.
But now I pause.
Because I’ve learned to question it.
As Viktor Frankl said:
“Between stimulus and response there is a space.
In that space is our power to choose our response.
In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
And Gabor Maté put it like this:
“The automatic responses of the past are triggered by the present, and we think we're responding to the present - but we're not.”
We’re responding to something older.
Something familiar.
Something that once hurt and never fully left.
I had a situation not long ago.
Someone said something I took as disrespect.
I could feel my body preparing to defend again.
But I waited.
And in the pause, I realised… this wasn’t a threat.
He just didn’t know how to speak. Not malicious - just a bit rough around the edges.
There was no war. My body just didn’t know that yet.
And that’s what I want you to know:
Your nervous system isn’t broken.
It’s been protecting you for years.
Maybe you tend to fight. Or run. Or freeze. Or fawn.
Whatever it is...there’s nothing wrong with you.
But there is something better waiting for you.
A life where you lead...not your wounds.
So when you feel the response rising… pause.
Ask:
- Is this the correct way to respond - or just the most familiar?
- Have I really considered everything - not just what hurts, but what’s true, what’s needed, and what would be pleasing to Allah?
- Is there another way to respond - one that’s unfamiliar, maybe gentler, maybe slower but more true to who I’m becoming, not just who I’ve been?
You might not change overnight.
But the fact that you’re even noticing…
That’s the shift.
That’s healing.
That’s the moment you stop being the scared child.
And begin becoming the calm, anchored adult…
You never had.
But always needed.
Next time, we look at the pattern beneath the pain and why what you believe about yourself isn’t always yours to carry.
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Quietly, consistently - we’ll walk this healing map together.
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