2018

“Mum, sometimes when I watch a show or something on TV and someone gets angry, I start to think it’s my fault. But I know it’s not.”

Defne said this just a few minutes ago.
Her words landed in my chest like a sharp, unexpected knife.

There are moments in motherhood when time seems to stop. This was one of them.

Because I understood her. Instantly. Too well.

She can be loud, dramatic, expressive when it comes to small things. A minor argument, a disappointment, something trivial can turn into big emotions. But when life presents something truly serious—something that actually deserves protection, anger, boundaries—she goes silent. She shrinks. She withdraws into herself.

And in that silence, she carries guilt.

Just like I always have.

I have spent much of my life with a quiet voice inside me whispering, “It must be your fault.”
If someone was upset, I assumed I caused it.
If there was tension in the room, I felt responsible for fixing it.
If someone was distant, I searched my own words, my own behavior, my own tone, trying to find what I had done wrong.

It’s an exhausting way to exist.
And I see now that this invisible burden may be passing to my child.

That realization hurts more than anything.

Because this belief—that we are responsible for other people’s emotions—slowly erodes self-worth. It teaches a child to silence herself, to shrink, to over-apologize, to carry guilt that does not belong to her. It makes kindness turn into self-blame, empathy into self-erasure.

And I don’t want that for her.

Children learn far more from who we are than from what we say. If I want her to believe that she is not responsible for the emotional storms of others, I must first unlearn this belief myself. I must speak more gently to myself. Set clearer boundaries. Model self-compassion. Show her, through my behavior, that it is safe to exist without constantly apologizing for it.

This is not just her healing.
This is mine too.

Maybe parenting is often like this:
Not raising a child, but meeting your own childhood again through their eyes.
Recognizing old wounds when they echo in their words.
And choosing—consciously—to stop the cycle with love.

Tonight, I will hold her a little closer.
And tomorrow, I will begin again—with more awareness, more gentleness, and more intention.

For her.
And for the little girl inside me who also believed everything was her fault.