A Sensitive Child in a Loud World
226 Words
Page Two: A Sensitive Child in a
Loud World
People think I hate them because I am quiet. Because I sit with my own thoughts and my own music. Because I listen more than I speak. They mistake my silence for distance, when it’s really just how I breathe.
I’ve always been sensitive. Not the kind of sensitive people protect, but the kind they expect to harden. Raised voices stayed with me. Sharp words echoed longer than they should have. So I learned to retreat—not because I didn’t care, but because caring too much hurt.
Music became my safe place. With my earphones in, I could disappear without leaving. I didn’t have to explain myself. I didn’t have to perform.
I could feel everything privately, where no one could tell me I was too quiet or too much.
There were many moments I wanted to speak up, to say, this hurts me, but fear always arrived first. Fear of being misunderstood. Fear of being dismissed. So I chose silence again and again, telling myself it was easier that way.
Sometimes it was.
But often, it made people assume the wrong things about me.
They never knew that my quiet wasn’t hatred. It was protection. It was survival. It was me holding myself together in a world that didn’t know how to be gentle.
- Writer
