When Trust is Shattered: A Journey from Fear to Survival

At 17, I faced a fear I’d already prepared myself for—I always knew that once I turned 18, my parents would likely kick me out. They’d talked about it for years. I thought I’d end up on the streets, maybe in a homeless shelter, but I never imagined they’d try to have me locked away in a psychiatric hospital. I didn’t even know that still existed. I didn’t fear their actions so much as the outcome: being confined in a psych ward and never gaining my freedom.

I wasn’t a problem child. I wasn’t breaking the law, sneaking out, whoring around, skipping school, getting in fights, or causing trouble any other way.  In fact, I was a good kid—studious, obedient, and about as respectful as any normal 17 year old. The issue wasn’t my behavior; it was my growing disconnection from the rigid worldview my Southern Baptist parents expected me to follow. By 14, I stopped going to church, but it wasn’t out of rebellion—I was changing, my thoughts evolving, and I simply couldn’t reconcile their denominations (the only one I knew anything about) teachings with what I felt was true. But instead of trying to understand, they tried to force me back into their mold. They punished me for having a mind of my own.

At home, they made me sit through hours of sermons from a preacher I had no connection to. It wasn’t about nurturing faith—it was about control. There was no space for conversation or understanding—just a constant attempt to break my will, to force me into their narrow way of thinking. And when that didn’t work, they resorted to the extreme: trying to have me institutionalized in a psychiatric hospital. It wasn’t about concern for my well-being—it was about control. I wasn’t a rebellious teen; I was a child they couldn’t, didn’t want to, and wouldn’t bother to understand. So they haulled me off to the city to the Psychiatric hospital there and tried to gaslight intake into believing I was insane. 

What I feared wasn’t their actions, but the result: the real possibility of being trapped in a psychiatric hospital, forever.

I knew that there at intake if I was honest with the evaluators, it would only confirm my parents’ belief that I was insane and make it easier for them to lock me away. I couldn’t risk that. I couldn’t let them win, even if it meant lying to the professionals who were supposed to help me.

And the truth was: I had been masking a long time and didn’t know it. It was later that I was in my first session with a shrink I felt safe with that seemed to last all day that my major depressive disorder that I had probably had for a decade was diagnosed along with the anxiety and slight eating disorder, mostly by not eating at school, which was made worse by my parents intentionally cooking foods I was allergic to, so I would avoid eating altogether. All of it was hidden behind the façade I had learned to maintain without realizing.

This wasn’t a story of rebellion or resistance in any sense. was trying to survive people who wanted to throw me away and loose the key. I was a normal teen doing what a teen does: finds their own personality, beliefs, and mind. 

Trust is fragile once broken, it can not be restore. Ultimately, my journey taught me one irreplaceable lesson: trust no one. When everyone else turns on you, when those who should love you most try to subjugate you, the one thing they can’t take from you is your ability to trust in yourself.