Awesome.
Love that for me.
I slide into my seat, notebook out, pen ready. My head nudges the volume dial up half a notch.
“Today,” Dr. Han says from the front, “we’re going to look at a longitudinal study of children who experienced severe neglect and physical abuse before the age of ten and how that shaped their functioning in early adulthood.”
My spine locks, and my brain starts flashing red.
“Remember,” she adds, like this is a fun TED Talk, “we’re looking at data. These are patterns, not destinies.”
The first slide of the case summary clicks up.
Subject A: Removed from biological mother’s care at age six after reports of severe neglect, food withholding, and physical abuse from mother and mother’s partner.
Spent several months in foster care before being placed with biological family.
Presenting problems at age twenty-one: chronic anxiety, nightmares, difficulty with trust and intimacy, academicoverachievement alternating with academic burnout, and suicidal ideation in late adolescence.
The words swim for a second and my vision tunnels.This is ridiculous. There are a thousand kids with that story. It’s not mine. It’s not?—
My hand has a death grip on my pen, knuckles white.
In for four.
Hold.
Out for six.
I force my eyes to the second bullet point.Foster care.I never did that. Mom ran us ragged, but she never let anyone take me.
“Notice the pattern,” Dr. Han is saying, pointer tapping through the slide. “Early deprivation often leads to hypervigilance and a strong performance streak. These young adults are used to their survival depending on reading a room, pleasing caregivers, and performing well enough to be considered ‘worth keeping.’”
Somebody laughs, soft and uncomfortable.
Perform well enough to be worth keeping.
Yeah. That tracks.
She flips to a graph—incidence of suicidality versus perceived caregiver support. The line is ugly: high suicide attempts when support is low, dropping as support increases but never quite touching zero.
“It often doesn’t matter,” she continues, “how much support appears in early adulthood. The nervous system is still primed to expect loss, rejection, and punishment. So even when things are objectively better, the person may still behave as though they’re one misstep away from catastrophe.”
The back of my neck prickles and Martin shifts in the seat next to me, scribbling notes like this is just another lecture. Myleg starts bouncing under the desk. Inside my head’s at a solid seven now and rising.
“Let’s pause here,” she says. “I want you to take a minute and write down your reactions. Emotional, intellectual, or both. Then we’ll discuss.”
Reactions.
My reaction is, “I need to leave my body immediately.”
Instead, I write:
Data ≠ destiny (bullshit but okay)
Hypervigilance, performance → “worth keeping”
early deprivation → “more space = more ways to fail,” feeling
