We all see the world through our own coloured lenses. Most of the time, we forget they’re there—until something small happens and suddenly everything feels heavier than it should.
I’ve noticed that I often react differently to the same situations as other people. Something that barely registers for someone else can feel deeply triggering for me. These emotional reactions don’t come from the situation itself, but from the meaning my body and mind attach to it.
For example, when my boyfriend tells me he’s catching up with a female friend, I sometimes feel a sharp pain in my chest. A voice inside me starts warning that I’m unsafe, that I should stop him, that something bad is about to happen. At the same time, I’ve watched a close friend respond to the exact same situation with ease—happy for her partner, not threatened at all.
Seeing our different reactions made me pause. Nothing about the situation itself was inherently dangerous, yet my nervous system reacted as if it were. This made me wonder whether what I call trauma isn’t always about a single event, but about the meaning we learn to attach to repeated moments. Moments that quietly teach us whether we are safe, valued, or replaceable.
How Childhood Memories Become Emotional Triggers
One memory that often returns to me is from school. I once walked into an empty classroom and realised lunch had been scheduled earlier than usual that day. Everyone had already left. No one knew I was missing.
I remember standing there, suddenly overwhelmed by loneliness. A part of me wished someone would come looking for me, or be waiting for me somewhere.
There are many possible explanations for what happened. Maybe my friends didn’t notice. Maybe they assumed I already knew. Maybe they were looking for me, and I was too afraid to ask. But what stayed with me wasn’t the situation itself—it was the story I told myself about it.
I am invisible. I am not important.
That moment quietly reinforced a belief about my self-worth that I already carried.
Over time, I learned to turn loneliness inward. If no one came looking for me, I told myself it must be because I wasn’t good enough to be loved. Even now, when something feels off—silence, tension, emotional distance—my instinct is to look inward and assume I am the problem.
This pattern shows up in relationships, friendships, and moments of uncertainty. Instead of asking what’s happening around me, I ask what’s wrong with me.
What Therapy Taught Me About Trauma and Meaning
I brought this memory up in a recent therapy session. My therapist asked how I felt thinking about that time. Then she asked, How would you have wanted to feel?
I said I wished there had been someone to tell me this:
Even if you walk into an empty room, even if people forget or leave without you, you are still loved and cared for.
That sentence felt like a small act of healing.
The last time I was in Korea, I was cleaning out our old bookshelves when I found a photo of myself at four years old, holding my dad’s hand. We were smiling at the camera, and when I looked closely, I noticed the joy in his eyes.
It wasn’t about realising my parents loved me—I already knew that. It was about remembering something deeper: that we are all born worthy of love and care.
When we look back at ourselves as children, we are so small, so soft, so deserving. And yet, that truth can become clouded by the stories we tell ourselves—stories shaped by misunderstanding, absence, and emotional neglect, often in ways that have nothing to do with who we truly are.
This is the lens I wear. It quietly tints ordinary moments, turning them into silent accusations. Loneliness feels like failure. Difference feels like defect.
Healing, for me, isn’t about removing that lens. It’s about recognising it—and learning to see the world, and myself, more clearly through it.
