Behind Closed Doors

Some childhoods don't look broken from the outside.
Mine did.
Divorce, addiction, violence, loss... it all blurred together before I even understood what any of it meant. I grew up learning how to read silence, how to predict chaos, and how to survive people who were supposed to keep me safe.
But the hardest part of my story didn't start with my parents.
It started later.
After loss. After grief. After I thought things might finally settle.
This is the story of what happens when instability follows you into every version of home you try to build... and how far "family" can stretch before it breaks.
Names have been changed for privacy.