I learned early that my existence was a problem.
Delicious smells of grilled chicken and freshly baked bread filled my nostrils. I danced and wiggled in my seat. I was excited to be around my family and eat something that wasn’t a struggle meal.
My mother’s eyes darkened with a subtle glare. “Stop it. You look ridiculous.”
She hopped about in her own chair, flailing her arms around.
Heads turned. The conversation at our table paused for a second. Eyes from surrounding tables fixed on my mother.
“Oh, sure,” she said loudly. “No one looks at you. They all look at me.”
Nobody had been paying attention to me being a typical seven-year-old. But when a grown woman starts mocking her own child, people tend to notice.
That was the beginning of a lifelong pattern. If something was wrong, it was my fault. If someone else was uncomfortable, it was my responsibility. If I had needs, they were a burden. I didn’t learn that my mother was being ridiculous. I learned that if my joy was excessive or my body was disruptive, my presence was something that needed to be managed for other people’s comfort.
We weren’t regular church-goers. We were more religious-adjacent. There were Bibles in the house, two of my aunts were devout, and my grandmother had once lived in a convent. But in our home, shame was the real religion. My mother used it as a parenting tactic. Her feelings were sacred. Mine were inconvenient. If she was upset, it was my fault. If she was having a bad day, it was my job to make it better or make myself scarce. I learned early that my role in the family was to exist as quietly and conveniently as possible.
My needs were always a problem. I was an obligation that caused friction. Which was confusing, because I was also told how wanted I had been, how hard my parents tried for a baby. I started to assume they’d expected a different baby and got saddled with a defective model they couldn’t return.
My mother often scolded me not to “take that tone” with her whenever I tried to explain how something she said hurt me, or when I questioned something didn’t make sense. Tone was code for my saying anything at all. My feelings weren’t allowed unless they were convenient, quiet, and affirming of hers. So I learned to swallow reactions mid-sentence. I learned to apologize for things I didn’t do. I learned that having emotions was rude.
By the time I was old enough to understand what guilt and shame actually were, I was already fluent.
My father didn’t exactly help.
I turned the last page and closed my book. Peering through the windows of his truck, I looked for movement. It had been a few hours, and my father still wasn’t back.
I focused on the pine needles on the trees instead of my hunger and discomfort.
Eventually, he showed back up to the truck.
“Heya, kiddo. Just one more stop and then we can head home.”
“Can we stop to get something to eat?” I whined. The thought of having to make another stop sounded like torture when there was no telling how long it would last.
“We’ll eat when we get home,” he insisted, starting up the truck.
“Please?” I begged, tears welling in my eyes.
“You’re fine. You can wait.”
“I’ve been waiting. I’m starving. Please?” I continued to whine.
He shook his head, forced the gearshift in reverse, and didn’t say anything else.
I quietly cried to myself, wiping away my tears. I didn’t want to frustrate him more than I clearly already had.
After a short drive, we pulled into a Carl’s Jr. drive-thru. He ordered two double western bacon cheeseburgers.
He tossed me one. “Since you’re starving and can’t wait.”
“Thank you,” I said quietly. I pushed my shoulders up towards my ears, trying to make myself small as I unwrapped the burger.
I finished as much as I could, but eventually my stomach began to protest. I wrapped the rest of my burger, and smiled at my father.
“Thank you so much!” I said in appreciation. “I can save the rest for later.”
“You’re not going to finish it?”
“I’m full.” My smile dropped.
“I thought you were starving?” he shoved the last piece of his burger into his mouth, crumpled the wrapper, and tossed it on the floor at my feet.
“I was,” I said quietly, hanging my head. “It was a lot.”
It never occurred to me that eleven-year-olds don’t have the stomach capacity of grown men. It was more proof that my body was wrong, my needs were exaggerated, and my existence was inconvenient.
By sixth grade, I had already learned the core lesson of my childhood: don’t need too much, don’t complain, don’t take up space. It felt like a moral code written directly into my nervous system.
During my teenage “rebellion”—skipping class to help out in the special needs room, or telling her boyfriend’s daughter she was allowed to say no thank you if my mother was getting insistent while out shopping—my mother and I started going to church. Not because I’d found Jesus, but because she wanted something to reel me back into her control. Suddenly, the guilt wasn’t just coming from her, it was coming from a whole room of adults and a book we read from several times a week.
I was taught that I was always wrong. Even if someone hurt me, my job was to forgive them. That self-sacrifice was virtue. That obedience was holiness. That having boundaries was selfish. It was my childhood lessons, but now with scripture citations.
Being a “good Christian” also meant I was responsible for the souls of the people around me. Which is an insane thing to put on a teenage girl who already felt like she existed on probation. I lost a lot of friends who weren’t religious and didn’t want to be around my judgments. I was either left behind or openly mocked for my beliefs. So I did what I’d always done—I folded myself smaller, tried harder, gave more.
I went back to being a good girl who gave all I could. I felt bad saying no. Boundaries didn’t exist. I kept my opinions quiet. I kept my needs quieter. I didn’t exist too loudly, in case it made other people uncomfortable. Apparently, God and my mother were aligned on that one.
By adulthood, my guilt had fully unionized.
I felt like a bad person for calling in sick even when I was actually sick. I had migraines one to two times a week. I vomited almost every morning before work. My back seized so badly I was convinced I’d permanently injured myself years earlier, and still I dragged myself in.
Toxic work culture had trained me to believe that having a body with limits was a personal failure. Even with doctor’s notes, my job felt constantly at risk. I was treated like I was exaggerating when I mentioned appointments or symptoms.
After about a year of dating my now-husband, he and his daughter moved in with me and mine.
“Do you get sick every morning before work?” he asked after I was done in the bathroom.
“Sometimes. It usually happens when I overdo sugar before bed.”
His brow furrowed and he tilted his head. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I think I just have a sensitive system or something,” I nodded firmly as I put my shoes on and grabbed my bag for work.
“You seem to handle it fine on the weekends,” he noted, puzzled.
I shrugged, “I don’t know. I guess it only happens sometimes.”
He noticed how stressed I was after interactions with certain people, like my mother. He’d gently connect it to times he’d experienced similar burnout.
I did what I always do when something cracks my worldview: I started researching. Stress. Burnout. Trauma responses. People-pleasing. Chronic shame. Emotional neglect. Suddenly my entire personality had footnotes.
It took me twenty-nine years, a lot of denial, and two nervous breakdowns to start questioning my toxic work situation, my relationships, and my entire shame-based operating system. The realization that I wasn’t living for myself, but for other people’s comfort, hit like a brick. I didn’t actually have to feel guilty for existing. I didn’t have to bend myself backwards for approval. Naturally, I didn’t take this well at first.
The unraveling process was a wild ride.
Learning that “no” is a full sentence is still something I’m practicing. I still feel like I owe people a justification for why I’m allowed to choose myself. Giving myself permission to rest, take up space, or feel proud of my accomplishments feels weirdly rebellious. I still struggle with not feeling productive if I let myself rest, and with my self-worth if I am productive but don’t have anything tangible to show for it. It feels like a waste somehow, like my value only exists if I’m generating something useful for others.
I’m also learning not to take responsibility for things outside my control, especially the emotions of others. Apparently, I’m not actually in charge of managing everyone’s internal experience.
I take it one day at a time. I’m in therapy, working through the traumas and habits that taught me my needs were negotiable and my feelings were inconvenient. I work on the shame that comes with living responsibly for myself instead of for everyone else. I overcorrect sometimes. I swing the pendulum too far and have to recalibrate. My therapist assures me this is, annoyingly, normal.
Unlearning shame is not a graceful process. It’s messy. It’s nonlinear. And it turns out there’s no gold star for suffering quietly.
My first real attempts at setting boundaries happened at work.
“I’m not able to travel for two weeks like that,” I answered in a meeting at work to discuss a health record system roll-out.
The higher ups had been trying to get me to volunteer since I had family up that way. But I was also the single parent of a young child, and it wasn’t possible.
“And Cadence will be going to Pelican Bay!” an executive laughed, looking to others to join in his fun.
I smiled politely. I was already under a lot of stress, and after weeks of saying no to being urged to be the one to travel up north, I no longer found it funny.
They insisted I attend the meeting, taking time away from my tasks. And honestly, it could have been an email.
“Just going to mark down here,” he started writing in his notes, “that she’ll be in charge of that.”
Awkward glances were exchanged amongst my colleagues, polite laughter offered.
“I said no.”
“Who votes Cadence to Pelican Bay?” smirking as he glanced around the room, refusing to let it die.
I was done.
I furrowed my brow and sat up in my chair, planting my feet firm on the ground. Meeting his eyes, I shook my head. “I told you I’m not going. I can’t. Move. On.”
He held out his hands, “Woah, woah, woah! I’m only joking. Take it easy.”
The meeting continued on, and I was left alone.
Later, he came to my desk and asked if we could talk privately in his office so he could apologize.
I said no. I told him that if he had something to say, he could say it right there, in the open. He looked startled, off-balance, like he wasn’t used to people refusing him. He apologized quietly and awkwardly, with my direct management in the cubicle next to me.
She gave me a silent thumbs up after he left, and something in me shifted.
I stopped being the go-to girl for everyone’s meaningless tasks. I stopped smoothing over other people’s discomfort. I stopped shrinking to make rooms feel lighter. I became, as I was told, the “no bullshit” girl. In my old life it would have felt like a moral failure. But it didn’t. It felt like oxygen.
My next attempts happened with my mother.
“You’ve changed! I don’t even recognize who you are anymore,” my mother scolded, venom in her voice.
I was silent over the phone. All fight had been wrung from me. I had decided it was time for me to leave Sacramento, and move somewhere that would bring me joy.
Needless to say, my announcement didn’t go over well.
“Why would you punish me like this? You’re hurting me. What did I ever do to deserve this?” she cried. She had grown accustomed to screaming at me over the phone.
The moment I stopped bending, she became the victim of my self-respect.
Every boundary I set was treated like an act of cruelty. Every “no” was reframed as betrayal. Every attempt to protect my energy was turned into evidence that I didn’t love her anymore. So I did what I’d been trained to do since childhood. I over-explained. I softened my tone. I apologized for setting the boundary at all. I tried to make my boundaries comfortable for her.
But boundaries aren’t meant to be comfortable for the people who benefited from you having none.
Eventually, I stopped arguing. I stopped justifying. I stopped trying to get her to understand. I held the line anyway.
That’s when I learned something that still makes my stomach drop: you can set a healthy boundary and still be cast as the villain. Not because you’re wrong, but because you’re no longer willing to be quiet and small.
These days, guilt still knocks at the door. Old habits die slow, and shame is persistent, like a bad ex who thinks “just checking in” is romantic. I don’t answer it anymore. I don’t owe my life to my past conditioning. I don’t owe my energy to other people’s comfort. I don’t owe my body’s constant productivity to justify its existence.
I’m learning, slowly and imperfectly, how to live without apologizing for being here. Turns out, my existence isn’t a problem. I’m a person who gets to take up space.
