I was eleven when my parents told me they were separating. Until that moment I believed they had the perfect relationship. I knew about the arguments, but I didn’t realise the extent of years of the pain or the infidelity that my siblings had protected me from. When the truth finally surfaced, it felt like my world came crashing down. For so long I had related to both my parents as a unit, the foundation of my identity. Suddenly that was gone, and with it I felt as though my sense of self had completely dissolved.
The separation seeped into every part of my life. My academics, my mood, my friendships, my sense of belonging. I felt like I was drifting without an anchor, half the person I used to be. Although the pain was real and deep, the journey of putting myself back together became one of the most defining experiences of my life and ended up shaping me in ways I did not expect. Here are some of the hardest struggles I faced and how I began to navigate them.
Fear of relationships
For a long time I carried a deep fear that any relationship I entered was bound to fail. If my parents’ marriage could not survive then why should I believe mine would, after all I was their child. At times the thought of commitment felt heavy and suffocating. I imagined myself trapped in a loveless partnership, repeating the patterns I had seen as a child.
It took years of reflection and honesty with myself to realise that their story did not have to become mine. Their choices did not dictate my future. By questioning those fears and testing what it meant to trust and connect with someone, I learned that relationships can thrive when they are built on openness, respect and a willingness to grow. I discovered that love is not defined by what I witnessed at home but by what I choose to create for myself.
Am I a good person?
One of the most unsettling thoughts I carried into my teenage years was whether I would turn out like my dad. I confused his mistakes with my own sense of morality and wondered if I was somehow destined to repeat them. The fear of inheriting traits I did not want often made me question whether I was a good person at all.
With time I realised that identity is not inheritance. Who I am is not a carbon copy of my parents. My therapist helped me see that the fact that I was even asking those questions showed that I cared about living more consciously and empathetically. I should measure my worth not by my family’s history but by the choices I made each day. Choosing honesty, compassion and accountability became the way I grounded myself and slowly silenced the fear that I was defined by someone else’s path. If I made mistakes along the way that’s okay, but it’s not because I was a bad person but because I’m a human being.
Feeling unloveable
Looking around at my friends I often thought they all had perfect families. Sleepovers, holidays, smiling pictures in their living rooms. Compared to them I felt defective. I believed that because my home was fractured I must somehow be unloveable. The shame of it pressed down on me and for years I went out of my way to hide the truth.
What helped me shift was opening up, even in small ways, to people I trusted. Each time I shared, I found that my story was not as rare as I thought. Others carried struggles too, even if they were not obvious. The more I let myself be honest, the more I experienced love not because of a perfect background but because of who I am in the present. That realisation softened the shame and gave me space to believe I am worthy of love exactly as I am.
Learning to trust again
Trust was one of the first things to break when my parents separated. If the people who were supposed to protect me could hurt each other so deeply, how could I ever place my trust in anyone else. I closed myself off, afraid that trusting again would only lead to disappointment.
Rebuilding that trust started in the smallest ways. I tested it with friends by sharing something personal, I leaned on teachers for guidance, and I let others support me even when it felt uncomfortable. Slowly I realised that trust is not about guaranteeing someone will never hurt you. It is about choosing to connect and to risk vulnerability because without it life remains shallow. In learning to trust others I also relearned how to trust myself, and that was one of the most powerful shifts of all.
Transforming my outlook
For a long time everything looked bleak. The separation coloured my view of the world, making me believe endings were inevitable and joy was only temporary. I braced myself for things to go wrong and carried the sense that nothing good could last.\
It was only with distance and healing that my perspective began to change. I came to see that my parents did not enter their marriage expecting failure. They had years filled with joy, laughter and growth. Some relationships do not last forever, but that does not erase their meaning. With that understanding I started to notice the nuance in my own life, the ways beauty and hope can exist even alongside pain. By embracing the full spectrum of my experiences, I allowed myself to become more open to possibility rather than trapped in doom.
Owning my experience
The biggest shift came when I stopped hiding. For so many years I worked hard to make people believe I came from a happy home, terrified that if they knew the truth they would see me differently. But covering it up only made me feel more disconnected from myself.
Owning my experience, being willing to say openly that my parents’ separation shaped me, became the key to rediscovering who I really am.
Once I stopped carrying shame, I could recognise the resilience, adaptability and empathy I had gained through the struggle. Instead of feeling broken, I began to feel rebuilt. Stronger. More compassionate. More grounded in who I choose to be. My parents’ split may have shattered my sense of self at eleven, but the journey of rebuilding has given me clarity and depth that I now carry with pride.