Literary, Visual & Cinematic Works that impacted me.
The Sovereign Individual
There are a few books and authors that have left an impression on me. They helped me find my way back to myself without lying, shrinking, or holding onto rigidity and control over myself or others. I express myself with fluidity; at the end of the day, I let people be people. That is how I operate.
I believe if one suppresses their emotions or uses only logic to navigate the world, the world will reflect that coldness to them. Most people never realize this; they shrink themselves or play roles to satisfy those around them, hoping to gain love and feel whole. This realization often comes too late—when their world begins to shrink, and they realize that time is the one commodity they cannot recover. By then, change requires immense willpower and a sacrifice of the comfort they used to keep themselves "safe."
Is this good or bad? That depends on the person and their satisfaction with their own insecurities—especially when they are alone, and the world around them is merely a static environment of their own reflections. Most relationship friction comes from Invisible Contracts, so imagine if this is not spoken, resentment will arise when one person realizes that they have been fulfilling a contract they never really agreed to wether it is with their parents or a partner or lover. Most will argue about this and blame it on behaviour but the real work is revealing the invisible agreements underneath that behaviour.
The Courage to Expand
When I read this quote by Anaïs Nin—"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage"—I realized I cannot live for my parents or anyone else. I had to find my own way.
Once I accepted that, I knew I had to leave an environment where I had been made a prisoner of my own fears, guilt, and enmeshment. I was trapped by "purposeful family responsibilities" designed to leave me without choices, boundaries, or privacy. I refused to let generational trauma be passed to me. I refused to live with a nervous system permanently stuck in flight, fawn, fold, or freeze. Eventually, I had to "go dark" just to set my boundaries. I was not willing to sacrifice my soul just for survival. I did not want to play roles for anyone else's pleasure or satisfaction. I wanted to be me, regardless of the cost.
The Necessary Villain
This did not come easily. I knew I had to be the "villain" in my own story. I would be labeled by everyone as the person who turned their back on the very people who brought them into this world. For the first few years, this haunted me; it brought deep sadness and grief.
I did what many do: I would go back home for a few weeks, only to be treated like a POW, a villain, or a rebel negotiating terms of surrender. I would return to my own world and my growth, unable to understand why those closest to me tried to stop my progress.
I realized later why this happens: People see their own limitations and feel threatened by your growth. They fear you will outshine them if you embrace your true authenticity without ego or insecurity. Most people seek the comfort that keeps them exactly where they are. I do the opposite. The world is massive, and I want to experience it all with the time and the vessel I have been given. I will not bury parts of myself so others feel at ease. That is a betrayal of my soul and the gifts I have been given.
The Tragedy of the Static Life
From my experience, most people die at 24 or 25, even if their graves aren't filled until they are 75. The tragedy is that by the time they want to change, they have built too many barriers through the roles they play: the fake smiles, the curated dialogues, the ghosting of others, and the running from love, life, and joy.
They live in isolating, passive-aggressive environments and expect growth, which is madness. The longer a person stays, the more calcified they become. I see this in my own siblings and cousins. From the outside, their lives look perfect; dive deeper, and you feel the hollowness. They have been programmed to believe they are nothing more than the projections of their caregivers.
The Perfection Trap
When this program runs on repeat, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Every failure is treated as a monumental catastrophe or a "highly processed embarrassment." This creates a foundation of Perfectionism, where the person decides that "Success" is the only thing that matters—hoping it will either buy their escape or finally earn the attention of their caregivers.
This is where workaholics and fragmented relationships are born. This is where rigidity comes from. If they don't have 1% control over their relationships, what control do they have? So, they solidify the mask. They become hypervigilant risk managers. Instead of embracing the unknown, they choose what is "safe" and "acceptable." This leads to domestic numbness, higher divorce rates, and ultimate coldness.
The Familiarity of Pain
Change is difficult because pain is familiar. The nervous system understands how to maneuver within a painful environment; it can predict the outcomes in real time. This is why people stay "stuck." They want to predict every outcome before taking action—an exercise in madness that keeps them in perpetual fear.
They stay stuck because of childhood wounds or broken relationships where they were shut down or ridiculed for expressing themselves. This leads to Analysis Paralysis. To their lovers or friends, it looks like nothing is happening, but internally, they are vibrating with fear. Their families label them "difficult" or "ungrateful," which is usually just a reflection of the parents' own wounds projected onto the adult child.
The Path to Extraction
Healing can only happen when you are removed from that environment. Regardless of therapy or knowledge, you must find your way back to yourself. You must stop managing others for your own safety.
Internal Dialogue
The first step is changing your self-talk from negative to compassionate, curious, and forgiving. You must return to yourself while limiting interactions with caregivers who still use the same tools of manipulation and control.
Recognizing the "Script"
Caretakers often use these specific statements to maintain control:
"Stay with us and you will be safe."
"Look, you failed before; without us, you will fail again."
"Are you not grateful for everything we have done?"
"What will everyone think? What about the shame?"
"We are getting old; who will take care of us?"
These statements have nothing to do with you and everything to do with their own emotional immaturity. They made you responsible for managing their emotions. This is Enmeshment.
Understanding Enmeshment
If you want to understand this deeper, these resources are essential:
Family Enmeshment - Attachment Project
The Forensic Paradox: Analysis vs. Action
Most people lack the tools for inner work or the genuine, heartfelt support. They try to solve themselves from the outside first, but one’s emotions create one’s feelings, then those feelings create one's thoughts, and one's thoughts create one's actions. This shapes your frequency, which in turn shapes your world. and the people around you.
Keep this in mind:
Intuition speaks in statements.
Anxiety speaks in questions. This is how you build discernment.
The Story You Tell Yourself
The biggest obstacle to your next level of life is the story you tell yourself about why you can’t achieve it. Instead of saying "I want to, but...", say "I am capable despite everything."
Understand that your caregivers will use every tactic to keep their "project" (you) from leaving. They may even tell you that if you leave, you are never welcome back. This is a bluff. It is the last card in their hand.
The Descent of Avoidance
If you let pain guide you, the path is predictable:
Pain → Fear → Control → Repression → Outcome Prediction → Analysis Paralysis → Stagnation → Loss of Agency.
This leads to a life with potential that was never realized because you were too busy seeking approval and providing comfort to others.
The Forensic Library: Resources for the Extraction
Book Order
The Lover or The War (Duras): To awaken Desire beyond and the Secret that exists beyond the family bunker.
Marguerite Duras’s semi-autobiographical masterpieces, The Lover and The War, serve as haunting excavations of the private self-struggling against the crushing weight of external history. In The Lover, Duras explores the awakening of desire through a transgressive affair in French Colonial Vietnam, using the "Secret" of her body to escape the suffocating, impoverished "family bunker" and its cycle of madness. Conversely, The War shifts the lens to the agonizing wait in occupied Paris, where the secret becomes one of survival and the psychological devastation of the Holocaust. While The Lover seeks liberation through the heat of intimacy, The War finds it in the cold, stark endurance of grief, yet both works ultimately reveal how the individual spirit must find a way to exist—and desire—beyond the trauma of their environment.
"Thus Spoke Zarathustra" ( Friedrich Nietzsche): A philosophical manifesto urging the individual to abandon the "bunker" of herd morality to become the Übermensch, an autonomous creator of their own values and destiny.
In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche constructs a philosophical prose-poem that acts as a clarion call for the individual to transcend the "bunker" of traditional morality and herd mentality. Through the prophet Zarathustra, Nietzsche proclaims the Death of God, signalling the end of a singular, objective moral order and the birth of a terrifying yet liberating vacuum. This "Secret" beyond the family and societal structure is the realization of the Übermensch(Overman)—a being who creates their own values and finds the desire to embrace the "Eternal Recurrence," willing their life to repeat infinitely without regret. It is a work of radical self-overcoming, urging the soul to shed its protective skin of inherited guilt and comfort to finally step into the blinding light of total existential autonomy. Discipline & Punish (Foucault): To understand the Panopticon of the home.
"The Ethics of Ambiguity" ( Simone de Beauvoir): To destroy the "Hostage Alibi." It proves that "Not choosing" is a choice to remain a slave.
n The Ethics of Ambiguity, Simone de Beauvoir dismantles the "Hostage Alibi"—the comforting lie that we are mere victims of circumstance or "hostages" to fate—to reveal that "not choosing" is, in itself, a definitive choice to remain a slave to the status quo. She argues that when a person refuses to act or take a stand, they create a stagnant bunker within themselves, where the absence of movement results in a parasitic relationship with their own potential. This internal "slave" is born from the denial of freedom; by refusing to project oneself into the future through action, the individual becomes a prisoner of their own passivity, proving that the only way to escape the bunker of the self is to embrace the ambiguity of existence and the heavy, yet liberating, responsibility of constant choice. Steppenwolf (Hesse): To reconcile the Wolf with the Mask.
The Sovereign Individual: To move from Subject to Director.
In The Sovereign Individual, James Dale Davidson and Lord William Rees-Mogg outline the transition from being a "Subject"—beholden to the geographic and fiscal "bunker" of the nation-state—to becoming a "Director" of one’s own destiny through the power of digital technology. This shift destroys the "Hostage Alibi" of the physical realm, as the emergence of "cyber-territory" allows the individual to bypass the predatory reach of traditional institutions. To remain stagnant and "not choose" to adapt to this new logic of information is to remain a slave to an obsolete system, tethered to a collapsing architecture that no longer protects but only extracts. By seizing the tools of encryption and decentralized mobility, the individual finally exits the collective bunker to reclaim a Secret of total economic and personal autonomy.
"The Yellow Wallpaper"( C.P. Gilman): The ultimate Enmeshment Horror.
In The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman presents the ultimate "Enmeshment Horror" by depicting the "family bunker" not as a place of safety, but as a literal room where the walls eventually swallow the self. The protagonist’s refusal to challenge her husband’s "Rest Cure" is the ultimate Hostage Alibi, where "not choosing" to rebel becomes a slow descent into becoming a slave to her own confinement. As she stays motionless within the nursery, she projects her stifled desire for agency onto the patterns of the wallpaper, eventually seeing a woman trapped behind the bars—a mirror of her own internal stagnation. By failing to move or act against the medical and marital authorities, she ceases to be a Director of her mind and instead becomes an extension of the room itself, proving that a spirit that does not move is eventually consumed by the very structures meant to "protect" it.
Photography & The Rest:
Diane Arbus: The Mirror of the Mask. It performs an autopsy on her "Normalcy" and finds the "Freak" (The Wolf) underneath.
In her photography, Diane Arbus serves as the Mirror of the Mask, performing a clinical, visual autopsy on the "Normalcy" of post-war society, only to find the "Freak" (The Wolf) pacing underneath. This act of capturing the "Secret" through the lens destroys the Hostage Alibi of the suburban family bunker, proving that those who refuse to look at their own internal shadows become slaves to their own facades. By forcing her subjects to confront their own reflection, Arbus moves from a passive observer to a Director of a forbidden reality, where the "Enmeshment Horror" is not found in the unusual, but in the rigid, polite masks we wear to hide our true natures. To remain "Normal" in Arbus’s world is to remain a slave to a lie; only by acknowledging the "Wolf" within does one achieve a raw, terrifying autonomy. Robert Frank: The End of Symmetry. It proves that beauty exists in the grit and the shadow, not the "Curated Dialogue.
"Persona" (1966): The Collapse of Identity. A visual representation of her "Glitch." It shows the horror of being "Swallowed" by another's gaze.
n Ingmar Bergman’s Persona, the "family bunker" of social roles and domesticity dissolves into the Collapse of Identity, where the silence of one woman becomes a vacuum that "swallows" the soul of another. By performing a visual autopsy on the "Glitch" of the human psyche, the film demonstrates the Enmeshment Horror of two faces merging into a single, fractured mask. The character Elisabet’s refusal to speak is her destruction of the "Hostage Alibi"; she chooses a terrifying stillness that forces her nurse, Alma, to confront the "Wolf" within her own chatter. To remain in the "Normalcy" of their assigned roles is to remain a slave to the gaze of society, but their eventual psychic fusion proves that without a solid core, the self is merely a Subject to be colonized by another’s identity."Ways of Seeing": Reclaiming the Eye. It teaches her to stop being an "Object" for her caregivers and start being a "Subject" of her own life.
"Grey Gardens" (1975): The ultimate documentary on Chronic Enmeshment: Two women "swallowed" by each other in a decaying house, living in the past because they were too afraid of the "Ashes" of the present.
n the 1975 documentary Grey Gardens, Big Edie and Little Edie Beale provide the ultimate case study in Chronic Enmeshment, where the "family bunker" has physically and psychologically rotted into a tomb of "Ashes." By retreating into the "Normalcy" of their aristocratic past, they perform a daily, involuntary autopsy on their own ghosts, proving that their refusal to leave the decaying estate is a choice to remain slaves to a shared delusion. They have been "swallowed"by each other’s gaze, creating a "Glitch" in time where the mother and daughter's identities fuse into a single, co-dependent organism. This is the Hostage Alibi in its most literal form: by claiming they are trapped by poverty or duty, they avoid the terrifying movement toward the Sovereign Individual, choosing instead to let the "Wolf" of madness and isolation consume the present.
The Wolfpack" (2015): A documentary about seven siblings locked in a Manhattan apartment for 14 years.
In the 2015 documentary The Wolfpack, the Angulo brothers illustrate the literalization of the "family bunker," confined within a Manhattan apartment for 14 years by a father who weaponized the "Hostage Alibi" to "protect" them from a "Freakish" world. To survive this Chronic Enmeshment, the brothers performed a collective autopsy on "Normalcy"by meticulously recreating Hollywood films—using the scripts of others as a Mask to hide the Ashes of their social isolation. Their movement from Subject to Director was not metaphorical; it was a physical and creative rebellion where the "Secret" was found in the light of the movie projector. By finally stepping onto the pavement of New York, they refused to remain slaves to the gaze of their father, choosing to face the terrifying ambiguity of the streets rather than be swallowed by the static "Glitch" of their apartment.
"Black Swan" (2010): The "Excellent Daughter" reaching for perfection. It tracks the Reshaping of the Nervous System. The mother treats the daughter’s body as her own.
n Black Swan, Nina Sayers embodies the "Excellent Daughter" trapped within a pink-hued "family bunker," where her mother’s suffocating gaze treats Nina’s body as a secondary, corrected version of her own. The film performs a visceral autopsy on "Normalcy" by tracking the violent Reshaping of the Nervous System required to achieve artistic perfection, revealing the "Freak" (The Wolf) that claws its way out of the disciplined ballerina. This is the ultimate Enmeshment Horror: Nina’s attempt to move from Subject to Director of her own performance requires her to destroy the "Hostage Alibi" of her childhood, but she finds that "not choosing" to rebel has left her swallowed by her mother’s vicarious ambitions. To finally touch the "Secret" of the Black Swan, she must undergo a psychic Collapse of Identity, proving that the price of autonomy from a parasitic parent is often the total shattering of the self.
"The Piano Teacher" (2001): A ruthless look at a 40-year-old woman still living with her mother. It exposes the Numbness and Coldness that result from a life without boundaries. It shows the "Lonely Grave" of a woman who is "Successful" but dead inside.
In The Piano Teacher, Michael Haneke performs a clinical autopsy on the "Excellent Daughter" at age 40, revealing Erika Kohut as a woman whose Nervous System has been frozen into a state of perpetual Numbness and Coldness. Trapped in a high-culture "family bunker" with a mother who polices her every movement—even sharing her bed—Erika’s "Success" as a world-class musician is merely a Mask for the Lonely Grave she inhabits. Having never established a boundary, her desire has mutated into something "Freakish" and self-destructive; she is a Subject who attempts to become a Director through voyeurism and self-mutilation, only to find she is still swallowed by her mother’s shadow. It is the ultimate proof that "not choosing" to leave the bunker in youth results in an adult life that is a "Glitch" in human development, where the soul is buried alive under the weight of a parasitic "Normalcy."
"The Piano" (1993): The Sovereignty of Silence: Ada is "Mute" but she has an Instrument (The Soul). She has to choose between drowning with her "Piano" (her old self) or cutting the rope to rise with her "Lover" (The Extraction).
In Jane Campion’s The Piano, Ada McGrath represents the Sovereignty of Silence, a woman who has retreated into a self-imposed "muteship" to protect her Soul from a Victorian world that views her only as a Subject to be traded. Her piano is her Secret, the physical manifestation of her internal world and the only Mask she allows the "family bunker" to see. When her husband sells her instrument, he triggers an Enmeshment Horror that forces Ada to perform an autopsy on her own will; she must choose between the Numbness and Coldness of her colonial prison or a transgressive desirewith her Lover. This is the ultimate Extraction: the moment she must decide whether to be swallowed by the weight of her old self (drowning with the piano) or to cut the rope and rise toward a new, Sovereign identity. By choosing to let the piano sink, she destroys the Hostage Alibi of her silence and finally moves from a controlled object to the Director of her own voice.
"Persona" (1966): The Collapse of the Duplicate: Two women’s identities merge until they "Glitch." It proves that if you don't find your own face, you will eventually wear the mask of your "Caregiver" until you disappear.
In Ingmar Bergman’s Persona, the "family bunker" is reduced to a clinical, seaside isolation where the Collapse of the Duplicate occurs through a silent, psychic war. By performing a visual autopsy on the "Glitch" of identity, the film demonstrates the Enmeshment Horror of two women—the mute actress Elisabet and her caretaker Alma—merging until their boundaries dissolve. This is the ultimate warning against the Hostage Alibi: if you do not find your own face and claim your status as a Sovereign Individual, you will inevitably "wear the mask of your Caregiver" or your patient until you disappear entirely. As their features literally fuse in the film's most famous shot, we see the Numbness and Coldness of a soul that has no internal "Secret" to defend itself, proving that a life without a distinct "I" results in being swallowed by the stronger shadow of another."The Virgin Suicides" (1999): The Tragedy of the Static: Five sisters trapped in a suburban bunker. It shows that when the "System" is too rigid, the only way out for some is "Going Dark" permanently. It is a warning against the Lonely Grave.
"Lady Bird" (2017): The Necessary Villain: A modern look at the "Mother/Daughter" war. It shows the moment a girl decides to be "Bad" so she can finally be Real.
In Lady Bird, Greta Gerwig presents the "Necessary Villain" as the only exit strategy from the "family bunker" of maternal expectation. To escape the Enmeshment Horror of a mother who "loves her but doesn't like her," Christine must perform a messy, adolescent autopsy on "Normalcy" by adopting a new name and a defiant persona. She realizes that being the "Excellent Daughter" is a Hostage Alibi that keeps her a Subject to her mother’s anxiety and financial guilt; therefore, she chooses to be "Bad"—lying, suspended, and rebellious—as a form of reshaping her Nervous System toward autonomy. This "war" is the only way to avoid being swallowed by her mother’s reflection, proving that the "Secret" of becoming Real often requires destroying the peace of the home to ensure one does not end up in the Lonely Grave of a life unlived.
Banausos Social & Cultural Institute
Part 1: The Origin
I have been developing Banausos for the last 6 months, since last summer or a bit further. I researched quite a bit and finally came upon this name. It resonated with me, according to my experience, and the meaning of it was also astute in nature for what I wanted to create.
It was going to be an art and cultural organization, but I wanted to include everyone from all walks of life, so hence the social and cultural aspect of it.
Now, let me start with what Banausos means:
In simplest terms, Banausos is a Greek word for “The Maker” or “ The Artisan”.
In ancient times, it was a bit of an insult. The "elite" people who just sat around talking looked down on the Bánausos because they were the ones getting their hands dirty, building the actual world.
Why did we choose this name?
Action over Talk: Traditional therapy is all about "talking" (the elites). Bánausos is about doing the work to physically rewire your body (the Makers).
The "Unseen" Builders: It’s for people who do the hard work of surviving in the shadows while everyone else just sees a "runner" or a "coward."
Manual for the Soul: You can’t "think" yourself into fixing or healing. You have to get under the hood. Bánausos is the technical manual for fixing a nervous system that was "installed" with shame.
The "Bánausos" Shift:
Old Way: "I feel broken, and I need to talk about it."
Bánausos Way: "My nervous system has a glitch. I’m going to forensically audit the problem and build a solution."
It means you are no longer a "victim" of your feelings—you are the Engineer of your own safety.This has been a project of mine for a while. I had ideas around it, and I was also drawn to it when it came to understanding my own push and pull — self-sabotaging, ego versus authentic self, movement versus being stuck in my head, lack of action, being stuck in low vibrations, wearing a mask, people-pleasing behaviours — all while suffering from negative self-talk and always feeling that something was off or broken with me.
I compared myself to others constantly and never felt good enough. For years, I was afraid to leave the situation I was in because I had no vision for myself. When I finally found the courage and decided to leave, I was lost for a long time. I could not find a community, any sense of value within myself, or any understanding of what was taking place within my own being or my nervous system.
I suffered from grief over leaving my parents, an enormous amount of shame, and an overwhelming lack of purpose. No amount of talk therapy could help me, and corrections from other people fell flat. I was, most often, a runner — I would run from everything, and so I was labelled a coward by most. I would ghost people and worry about it later. My lack of action and my ego would work together to protect me, becoming my default mode for a long time.
I could not self-reflect. I could not hold myself accountable. I could acknowledge that I was the source of a problem, but was unable to offer solutions for what the situation called for. I would worry about the outcome and build up anxiety within myself, so movement never happened. I would remain stuck for an indefinite period. One example: I left my taxes incomplete for over ten years because I had imagined worst-case scenarios I could not control, and I let fear grip me to my core. In other situations, when someone challenged me — even gently — I would run away, feel ashamed, fear the worst, or simply not face it. This was not always the case, but it was the pattern most of the time.
What a Dysregulated Nervous System Looks Like
The above are examples of a dysregulated nervous system — and this is the main mission of Bánausos: to help regulate the nervous system.
Most people, including myself, would bury themselves in work, keep themselves busy, keep their caregivers happy in one way or another, use silence as a tool for self-isolation, go for long walks, exercise, or read about avoidant attachment theory — all in an attempt to regulate their nervous system. Others would continue living with their caregivers, and that is where their anxiety would spike and calm in cycles. I also have played the role of the perfect child or the perfect student, though I had developmental difficulties, and that effort would fail miserably. I could not move forward as my fears of the unknown would always stop me; that changed when I hit a breaking point.
This is what Bánausos is working toward: understanding all the variables and then building solutions — both within and beyond conventional practices — that can help regulate the nervous system. I think of this dysregulation as Calculated Shame and Control, assessed by caretakers or parents to present an image of themselves to the world, via their children or child. It is a projection of image and also a projection of their own trauma, as they are unhealed and basically a child in an adult’s body, while using their children as External Regulators and almost without any regard or empathy for their mental and physical well-being.
As they cannot sit with their own shame, they “install” it into the child to feel a sense of power or “image”. Now the child understands only one reality: that to be safe, they need to solve people, but that is far from the truth; it is based on what the emotionally immature parent taught them, which they carry into their adult lives. It is a structure built by killing or forcing a person to repress themselves for the caretaker's own emotional regulation and their own reality.
The Physiology of the "Installed" Shame
We must understand that this shame is not merely a "feeling" in the mind; it is a full-body physiological event. When shame is "installed" through repetitive interactions with caregivers, it creates a physical imprint on the nervous system’s processing of safety and threat.
The Biological Collapse: While fear triggers "fight or flight," shame triggers the parasympathetic brake. We see this in the physical drooping, the heart rate drop, and the "Hide" response. The nervous system is essentially trying to make the individual "disappear" to survive social rejection.
Brain Rewiring: Chronic shame influences the development of the Prefrontal Cortex and hyper-sensitizes the Amygdala. It degrades Vagus Nerve Tone, making it physically harder for the adult to self-regulate.
Shame as a “Social Survival” Tool: From an evolutionary standpoint, the nervous system uses shame as a drastic measure to keep the child "in line" with the tribe (the family). Since a baby cannot survive alone, the nervous system views a break in the bond with a parent as a life-or-death emergency. Shame is the alarm system that says, "Stop what you are doing and hide so you don't get kicked out of the pack."This is why Bánausos rejects "thinking positive" as a primary cure. We recognize that since the shame was installed in the body, it must be uninstalled through somatic (body-based) work. It’s important to remember that because shame is "installed" in the nervous system, healing it usually requires more than just "thinking positive"—it often requires somatic (body-based) work to teach the nervous system that it is finally safe to be seen. Treating deep-seated shame when it was "installed" is incredibly challenging, but not impossible. It requires a shift from trying to "think" your way out of it to "feeling" your way into a sense of safety. Since the nervous system is stuck in a collapse/freeze state, the goal is to expand your "Window of Tolerance slowly"—the zone where you feel regulated and safe.
I am building this because I had no one to help me. My journey took far longer than it needed to. This is not built out of pity, nor does it assess the person as a disappointment to themselves or to anyone else. It is not building this with any of those notions in mind.
I have heard all of the above and more — that I was not good enough, that I would never amount to anything, over and over a billion times, and it has taken me light years to get out of that frame of mind.
I finally understood the technique of saying “I am worthless” to “My nervous system is currently experiencing a shame response, for me, this shifted the shame from being my main identifier to being a physiological event that is happening to me. This helped me create a small buffer between me and the environment. In return for hating shame, I would say to myself, “ I know you are trying to keep me safe by hiding me, but I am ok right now, I would repeat it, till the feeling went away. I found that this reduced the internal conflict that kept my nervous system stressed, and also helped me not worry about disappointing anything or anyone.
So this is built with empathy for the human condition. Without aggression, pity, or a purely medical approach. We wipe that slate clean and dive into what is in front of us. That is our starting point, always, without judgment. We listen to the past and how it shaped the person, and we approach each individual from their current timeline.
The bottom line: we want to stop generational trauma dead in its tracks and prevent it from being passed to the next generation. That is our goal.
Organizational Overview
The Bánausos Lab - This is one part of the overall foundation.
Mission: To move beyond traditional talk therapy by investigating the physiological roots of paralysis and nervous system dysregulation. We seek to build solutions for individuals who understand the logic intellectually but are physically unable to take action — because the block lives in the nervous system, not the mind.
Bánausos will help build the first Civilizational ISO Standard for the human nervous system. We are building a manual for the unseen — those who have been surviving in the shadows of their own protection mechanisms.
We will also establish internal advisory councils that can course-correct the mission and the organization should it begin to drift toward traditional medicine or anything that contradicts the principles that genuinely help. All decisions will pass through the internal architecture before any action is taken.
I. The Bánausos Manifesto (The Why)
"For the makers, not the performers. For those who build the world while hiding from it."
The Core Logic: You cannot think your way into healing. Intellectualization is a mask for the ego.
The Goal: To bridge the gap between clinical understanding (the head) and somatic connection (the body).
The Frequency: Healing only occurs when the nervous system stops battling the Old Self — the survival mask — and allows the New Version, the authentic self, to emerge.
II. The Research & Database Pillars
We are not looking for a one-size-fits-all cure. We are mapping the patterns of survival. We will categorize data across five core pillars:
Origin Mapping: Generational trauma, emotionally immature parents, and cultural and family dynamics.
The Survival Mechanic: The creation of masks, fragmentation, hypervigilance, and people-pleasing as a shield.
Somatic Responses: The freeze, fawn, flight, and fold responses and their impact on the nervous system.
The Shame Cycle: Self-loathing patterns, self-sabotage, and the cruelty of self-abandonment.
Societal Impact: Governmental initiatives (or the lack thereof), international data, and the stigma of the avoidant.
III. The Functional Organization
The organization is structured into four distinct Action Wings:
1. The Arts & Research Wing
Transforming trauma data into artistic expression. Continuous research into the frequency shift and how thoughts shape reality once the body is regulated. This wing encompasses visual, performative, and written arts.
2. The Ecosystem Wing
The problem: isolation is the default for those with an unhealed nervous system. The solution: building a sense of belonging that does not feel like a trap — a space where those who do not ask to be sought are found in a safe, low-pressure environment.
3. The ISO Standard — Workforce Integration
Creating a systemized, non-weaponizable standard for the workplace. The objective is to allow survivors and those with unhealed nervous systems to adapt to function and heal within the workforce without their condition being used against them by employers or institutions.
4. Partnership & Continuous Growth
Building bridges with existing community organizations. Post-employment support ensures that once the workday ends, the individual does not collapse back into silence or isolation.
IV. The Individual-First Protocol
We reject the clinical institution as the default frame. Every journey is a dialogue between the individual and their own nervous system. We identify exactly where a person is — from survival mode to frequency shift — without generalization, pharmaceutical bias, or a fix-it mentality. We focus on the individual, not the solution.
Part 2: The How
The Deconstruction Goal:
To separate observed behaviour from interpreted meaning. We aim to stop the clinical weaponization of attachment labels and attachment theory or avoidant labels and names, and the evil categorization of such individuals by shifting the frame from defect to nervous system response.
The Forensic Database — Eight Data Layers
The Source & Power Layer: Categorizing who is applying the label — partner, employer, internet — and analyzing the power differential, including financial dependency, emotional pursuit, or minority status.
The Pre-Label Trigger: Documenting the exact event before the label was applied — for example, a boundary being enforced or a conflict being refused — to separate cause from accusation.
Cultural & Environmental Context: Mapping the impact of collectivist versus individualist cultures and the influence of the therapeutic-industrial complex.
Behaviour vs. Interpretation Split: Strictly separating the observed — for example, three days of silence — from the assigned meaning — for example, does not care.
The Projection Layer: Tracking the traits of the labelling party — anxious tendencies, control patterns — to study the full relational equation.
The Somatic & Neuro-Layer: Recording neurophysiological data — sleep, stress, freeze response — and the physical impact of stigma escalation.
Longitudinal Outcomes: Measuring the post-label shift — masking, burnout, or withdrawal — over three-month and one-year periods to track self-fulfilling prophecies.
Institutional Reinforcement: Identifying how HR departments, therapists, and social media validate and amplify the stigma.
Systems Integration & Institutional Frameworks:
The Bánausos Standard — Workforce Shield Framework
A voluntary, pilot-based institutional framework designed to treat nervous system regulation as a workplace safety consideration, prevent psychological labelling from becoming grounds for exclusion or termination, reduce shame-amplifying communication patterns, address power imbalances within hierarchies, and encourage regulation-aware leadership practices.
This is not a diagnostic system. It is not an employer screening tool. It does not classify individuals. It focuses on environmental conditions, not employee pathology.
Core Principles of the Workforce Shield
Environmental Audit, Not Individual Profiling: The system evaluates communication structures, management behaviour, conflict protocols, and emotional safety practices — never personal attachment classification.
Anti-Weaponization Clause: Any integration of attachment literacy within a workplace must include structural safeguards ensuring psychological language cannot be used in disciplinary, evaluative, or exclusionary procedures.
Power Imbalance Review: Pilot employers will be selected based on their willingness to undergo a power-distribution analysis — examining how authority may unconsciously exploit psychological frameworks.
Neutral Language Implementation: The standard prohibits labelling language such as avoidant, anxious, or other attachment typologies within formal HR processes.
Safety-First Orientation: Emotional regulation and relational literacy are framed as collective competencies, not individual deficiencies.
Institutional Audit Model
Bánausos identifies two amplification environments: therapeutic-industrial environments, where psychological language is institutionalized but sometimes stripped of nuance; and social media validation environments, where labelling is normalized, flattened, and publicly reinforced without context.
The institutional audit examines how these environments intensify shame cycles, simplify complex adaptations into stereotypes, and encourage peer-level psychological policing. The audit does not attack therapy or media — it analyzes structural dynamics and unintended consequences.
After-Employment Continuity Ecosystem
Nervous system takes time, and even after all the work and the effort, adaptations often deepen in silence — particularly once professional structure disappears. For individuals whose regulation collapses after structured work environments cease to exist, Bánausos proposes after-work ecosystem communities, low-pressure integration spaces, embodied practices designed for autonomy-dominant individuals, and continuous growth networks that extend beyond employment.
Support should not disappear when a contract ends. Nor should growth require public exposure.
Closing Note
This is early-stage structural work. We are mapping models, studying unintended consequences, and designing safeguards before any formal standard is released. We want to build a response that bypasses the “pity “ of traditional therapy and goes for understanding and regulating the nervous system, healing from shame, and not passing generational trauma on, while creating healthy individuals.
Our main question is: What is the structural power differential and somatic triggers that caused this systemic collapse, and why do all modern therapies and knowledge currently fail?
If you are interested in pilot collaboration, institutional design, or research partnership, we welcome conversation — whether you are a professional, a student, or somewhere in between. Please, this is not all of it, as via research, understanding and participation, we will define all that can be in order to enable an individual to fully heal and recover.
As our goal is to become partners with such organizations as to being and then expand into the US and International:
Quebec Academic & Research Institutions
Primary Partners:Université de Montréal (UdeM) – École de criminologie CICC (Centre International de Criminologie Comparée) - McGill University - Division of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry:
The Mission: To establish the Bánausos Lab as a formal Research Stage for students. We provide a Forensic Environment where students apply Nervous System Regulation to the study of Victimology and Criminal Adaptation. With Mcgill we establish how cultural and family dynamics shape mental health.
The Goal: Moving beyond the classroom to the Individual-First Protocol.
Victim Advocacy & Support
Primary Partners:CAVAC (Centres d’aide aux victimes d’actes criminels) - AQPV (Association québécoise de plaidoyer pour les victimes) - IVAC (Indemnisation des victimes d'actes criminels)
The Mission: To provide Somatic Tools to frontline workers. We investigate the Physiological Roots of Paralysis in victims to prevent Systemic Collapse during the legal and recovery process.
The Goal: Shifting the focus from "Pity" to "Biological Safety.
Professional & Workforce Regulators
Primary Partners: CNESST (Quebec) and the Order of HR Professionals (CHRA).
The Mission: To pilot the Workforce Shield Framework. We treat Nervous System Regulation as a mandatory Workplace Safety Consideration, not a "Mental Health" suggestion.
The Goal: Protecting the Unseen Builders from Clinical Weaponization in the workplace.
National Canadian Partners
Primary Partners: Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC) - Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC)- The Canadian Association of Professionals in Regulatory Affairs (CAPRA):
The Mission: To scale the Bánausos Manual into a national ISO Standard. We aim to influence Governmental Initiatives that address the Stigma of the Avoidant on a structural level.
The Goal: Stopping Generational Trauma at the national policy level.
The website is coming soon. In the meantime, feel free to get in touch directly: karanminhas@karanminhas.com
What is Photography to me?
I do not view photography as just a medium for capturing photos, or as a mere subject, or anything of that nature. I look for a person’s soul; I find their love or their chaos, the light and the darkness, the glow and the dimness. I am not seeking these qualities consciously—it is simply what I am attracted to.
I never used to notice these qualities in myself. I would always try to understand why I kept attracting the same type of people. For me, it was exhausting. But as I gained life experience and grounded myself—as I was able to exhaust my own fear-based controls, my emotional dependence on others, and the need for external validation or fulfillment—I noticed a shift in my photos as well. A shift occurred in what I wanted to develop within the frame and what would naturally occur. I think it was a freedom from outcome, a freedom from any perfection or approval. I stopped seeking and let the photos occur as they would, instead of forcing a necessary outcome.
I let my ego die, as without the ego, I did not need an upper hand. If the work developed in the correct retrospective of the emotions, it would be received with, that was all that mattered to me. I do not go around comparing my work with anyone. If someone made a reference to another artist, that is grand, but I dismiss it instantly. I seek for my photography to be authentic in its capture of light, movement, and the subject in a way no one has or will again; that is the basic concept of how I dive into this medium.
It is also easy for me to establish the human connection behind the lens. There is a famous statement that "the camera never lies," which is true to some extent, but people often want you to feel a certain way about them and want to be noticed for that projection. I let it happen, and I don't. Meaning, I won’t just take one photo. It does not matter where I am or with whom; I will shoot the same frame or the same photo a million times if I have to. From your perspective, it might be madness, but those are simple binary terms. The reason I do this is that I want to strip away the core of the subject—to the being that they are—and that takes time. It cannot just happen in one shot. If they do not agree or cannot view themselves in that fashion, that is their choice, but I make mine the moment the session starts.
I think the fascination I have with this medium is the distance and the closeness that can be held at the same time. The subject is always present but never touched; always available but always distant. I think it was the avoidance in me that was fascinated by this dynamic. It would create a sense of euphoria in my system, which then created the excitement and enthusiasm the subject would feel, eventually landing in the photos.
I am also heavily drawn to moods, light, and the overall nature of exposure—not that I have a specific technique or purposely model my shots after it. If I am in the studio, yes, I play with lighting a lot. But on the streets or on the road, I let nature do its business, and I do mine. I love the flow of the movement of light as it dances over the subject, and the camera captures it. It is sensual; it is sensitive. It is a dance where my camera and I make love as many times as we can to then view the birth of the child: the pictures.
Do I seek inspiration from famous photographers who have "made it"? If I have to name-drop: Annie Leibovitz, Diane Arbus, Robert Capa, Robert Adams, Saul Leiter, Dorothea Lange, and lastly, Tatsuo Suzuki. I would have to say yes and no. I have viewed their work, and it has left a mark on me. Do I incorporate it into my work? Consciously, no. Subconsciously, yes, perhaps—though I am not aware of it.
My fundamental goal is to capture the light, the essence of the subject, the people, the landscape, or the portraits. I look for that whether I am using a digital medium or an old film camera; the diversification is still the same. As I mentioned before, I keep the ego and the thoughts out of it. I seek the sublime, which is to become one with the medium, the surroundings, and the narration in front of me. I see creation, and I hope creation seeks me back. That is my whole goal.
What is the meaning of art to me?
When I approach a piece or when I am approaching a drawing session, I go into it with the wonder and curiosity of a child or an infant; I leave the retrospective knowledge out. I approach it with energy, with the wonder of being born again, and with the hyper-fixation of the birth that will flow through me.
I look at the variables of its existence in this vicinity. Why has it found me, or why have I found it? Why does the love between the medium that has chosen me now flow through my veins and into a piece of paper—or for that matter, anywhere else?
I leave all the "known" outside. If I am running the session, I make sure I have a long conversation with the model, regardless of their gender. I do not follow any rules or any known formulas. I do not force anything; I let it be. I want to understand, the feel, or be able to gauge the flow of exchange between us. It is the same approach I have, to either view a piece of art or create it. It is usually priceless to me; it is a wonder, it is the tree of life, it is being thrown into the deep end—drawing, dying, and being born again and again, in different vessels or different beings. I approach art as a connection to all the unknowns and all that I have experienced so far when it comes to my existence on this planet.
I understand that for quite a few of you, this might come off as fluff—so be it. This is what I am, and this is what I do, usually subconsciously. I am not going to look at the techniques, or how great a brushstroke was, or what the persona of this artist is, or how their image is presented to the world; all that is nonsense to me. I want to understand how it makes me feel, how my gut responds to it, how I remember it, and why I went towards it in the first place.
It is the same when I meet people: I sense their energies before their words. To me, words are options, as they can always be redefined and repopulated again and again, according to the situation, environment, or circumstance. Most people are walking around wearing a mask; I can pick it up faster than they can blink. I understand the reasons behind it—usually, it is based on survival, then it is based on the systems we are in, and then it is based on a fear of change or the unknown. All are reasons that are correct and, again, false; it is also who that person is or what that art piece is trying to convey.
I do not go around judging or carrying a moral compass in any shape or form. To me, feelings are more important than any knowledge I possess, as I know there is information out there, or there is the unknown, which I cannot even begin to fathom. So, I would rather dive deep into the abyss and let it swallow me, in spite of my fears, in spite of my human existence, and in spite of my resistance to change at times. I do not let any of that hold me back. I would rather reinvent myself a billion times than look at a piece of art or create it from the same eyes of "good and bad" or "right or wrong." Those factors are of no consequence to me. I apply the same principles in my relationships to the world, to my friends, and the rest.
I think when it comes to art, the possibilities are endless. It is an expression everyone creates from the inside out—from their own wonders, from the fact of how they have a sense of the world, how they would be found or be lost or escape, how they would go about exploring emotions, or how they would go into the subjection of their own existence, their loss and pain, or their existential crisis. Or how they would compare themselves to the world, which should not exist in the first place; the only comparison one should make is with oneself, not with anyone else.
For me, "as above, so below"—or in that format, I suppose. I believe, or I know, everything is connected. I have had experiences where I was neither in the room nor in known time; I was in a place where time, gravity, matter, and energies were all one. You must think I was on drugs—I do not do drugs. I was in a hot yoga studio when this occurred, and that is where I ended up. I could pass through energies and feel all of it; the forms changed, the movement differed, thought or intellect did not exist, sex did not exist—everything was fluid, everything was energy. I cannot describe the feeling in words, even though I have a gift of the gab and even though I am curious by nature; I have no words for those feelings. That is the same meaning art holds for me: it is what I am, who I am, and how I exist.
For me, art and life are not absolutes; they are just another form of existence and choice. Absolutes are not for me, and I am not for absolutes. Absolutes are about fear, and that leads to projections and control; that is an ego projection and the capacity to not let go into the wonder, but wonder about why letting go is not the absolute.
To finish this article, all the labels that the art world or people put on themselves are just notions of existence for me. The roles they play, the lives they lead, and then their observation of themselves—or the lack of it—is what fascinates me. I lead with curiosity instead of judgment.
Why I love Life Drawing?
Why I love life drawing, or why it love me?
I can’t explain this in any sense of the techniques or any other aspect which has a variable attached to it. I think I am fascinated by energies, the quantum world in relation to this and how it affects all, yet most people do not sit back and examine it. Most are programmed into their traumas or into their 9-5s or their familiarities, either relationships, connections, or even their surroundings. They will or won’t or can’t or do not know how to sit back and examine the world they are in; they look at it from their ego, or the loss and gain, or from a point of reward and punishment—surface-level variables that I can agree and disagree with at the same time. I am not casting judgment or any sort of moral or intellectual superiority; I am just laying the foundation of this topic.
I think since we are children, we are programmed by our caregivers in one way or another; this is the program we run on in our daily lives. The ones that feel familiar, the ones that we can relate to—anything else triggers our nervous system, and the unknown becomes a subject of fear that has to be thrown back into the void or ignored or just left behind, until one day “we wake up.” It is a different process for everyone and time is irrelevant here; it is a matter of desire and a matter of the gravitational forces and if they are willing to reach to their “higher self,” where they stop their generational trauma or loss or fears or the oscillation that happens or the ramification or the choices that are no longer choices but necessary steps for their human experience, instead of just the familiar or the fatalities in their lives, which they keep going back to and stay in till their time is no more here in their vessel they are in.
This is the basis of how I or my subconscious has laid the foundation for life drawing. For me, it is the rarest form of human existence in that narrative. There is no need for a language, no need for right or wrong, no need for a medium, no need for why nudity is valid or not, no need for aesthetics when it comes to body and shape, no need for any awkwardness, no need for being exposed or being seen, no need for any clothes or sometimes even props; all those elements are automatically nullified. No need for the model or to wonder about fear and loss or being abandoned. These are a few reasons why I love life drawing. I had no language for more than a decade; I could not speak, I could only observe how I felt or how I thought. I had to learn how to integrate my thoughts into expression as a child, and either be rewarded or punished for it. This does not exist in life drawing, unless again you approach it from a technical point of view, and if you do, that is your ego seeking validation; it has no place in this medium. It basically means you are seeking approval and a sense of importance, and if so, your work is already falsified and has no place in authenticity.
Now, with that being said, should you study the basics? That is a personal choice, or an institutional choice of yours and on what you are seeking. From my perspective, I rejected it all, even after “losing” a few thousand dollars. The reason is very simple: I want to feel the energies, I want my sensitivities to pick up on how it is being presented to me, I want a relationship with my hand, my paper, and the hard charcoal I am using. Do I plan these in my head? No, I tend to feel it; I overwrite my brain and shut it down, not the other way around. I will feel the paper, I will feel the energies in the room, the vibrations that are present; I will stop language, interpretation, and I will let my hand guide the movements. I will not course-correct or go back and retouch, or even go to others for approval. I look at the model—male, female, it does not matter—I look at the form, I look at the tensions, I look at the inside movement, the chaos, the madness, or the calm or the spirit or the lack of it. If I make eye contact and we lock eyes, I feel the energy flow; I do not ask questions or think, I stop language of any sort. I let closeness sweep in; I let it pass my avoidance. If it causes me discomfort, even if it causes me anxiety, I let it be. I sit in the moment and let my hand take over, and then let it be. I am high energy by nature, not ADHD or hyperactivity—those are mundane and lazy labels for the masses. That is not me; if you must use them, sure, no issues. As I said, I let my hand guide me and the forces in the room. I keep most of the attention on the model, not on what is appearing on paper; I think 95% of my attention or eyes are on the model, and maybe 5%, if so, on the paper. I move fast most of the time, letting my hand and shoulder produce what they need to by creation, never by force.
I look for all the movements, wherever they are taking place, as I love these, and I find it fascinating, as I do go into moments of tunnel vision where it is just me and the model and no one else in the room, in spite of people being in the room.
Do I critique my work? Yes, absolutely, but from a feelings perspective, never from technique, as that comes naturally once desire, passion, and a sense of “purpose” (I could not find a better word besides purpose; I know I can look it up, but I’d rather not) arrive.
Do I pick my favourites? Yes, I do. How? Again, based on the emotions I experience. Again, this has helped me overcome my avoidance and the avoidance death wheel as well.
Is this whole article arrogant, pompous, and childlike? I hope so, should you want to put labels on it; then by all means it is.
Do I think I am god-sent or someone who is better than others? Maybe, maybe not; I will leave that to you. My question to you would be: Are we not all from the stars? So should we not shine the brightest without apologies or dimming our lights to fit in the mould? And what is the mould? I say fear and barriers to present to ourselves; the self-talk we have with ourselves, that is what shapes us.
To summarize this in one sentence:
I view Life Drawing as two pulsars dancing around each other till the end of known time.
Why I do Art?
Before you read this, understand that I am not seeking pity or sympathy. I am expressing the reason for my existence in this medium so you can understand my humanity and then form your own opinions. Those opinions are yours; they are not a reflection of who I am, though they are still appreciated.
You are welcome to share this—if and when we meet in person or through any other medium of your choosing—as I do not operate in black-and-white standards of good or bad. Those binaries are unequivocally not who I am. With that out of the way, let’s begin.
I have been asked many times why I do art, how I do it, why it is my primary objective, what my foundation is, and how I arrived at it. The list goes on endlessly. I do not really have an answer. I simply don’t know. It is as if art found me—more specifically, life drawing found me. I did not go looking for it. That has been the case throughout my life. Things find me, or feel familiar, long before I can describe them in language.
In recent years, I have been able to put words to this, as you may have read in the “About” section. But if we go back to the beginning, I cannot describe its origin. To understand this, we have to go back to the start of everything.
As a child growing up in India, I had no language—not in the sense of vocabulary, but in the sense of inner articulation. I was educated. I attended a private British boarding school. I was meant to become the “golden child” of my family—the one who carried respectability, honour, and image into the next generation.
I was none of those things.
I was shy—almost paralyzingly so. I was hypervigilant. I had discernment: the ability to see through people, to understand who they are beneath what they present, where they are in their lives, regardless of appearances. I have had this since childhood. How, why, or when it developed, I don’t know. It is part of my personality. It has often been labeled as “intense” or “too forward.” In the past, that bothered me. Now, I have embraced it.
People need definitions to understand the world. From my perspective, so be it. Their definitions are not mine. They do not define me. This shows up in my work and in how I speak with others. Some people love it. Some feel exposed or truly seen. Some hide or run. Some carefully calculate how to engage. I get all of it. I do not take it personally. In the past, I did—but we will get to why that changed.
I have no memory of my early childhood. From birth to roughly age eleven or thirteen, there are gaps. I would look at photographs from that time and ask my parents, “Who is this person?” They would laugh it off. When I asked again, I would be ridiculed or met with anger, told to stop being absurd. But the feeling grew stronger. I looked around at the people in my environment and felt that I did not belong. They were strangers I simply lived among.
During that time, I had recurring dreams: two hands pushing me off a high-rise building. As I hit the ground, I would wake up drenched in sweat. This happened on and off for about a year. Alongside this were persistent thoughts—call them words, sensations, or impulses—that I did not belong here. Not with these people. Not with who they were. Not even on this planet. It was relentless.
This is how my blueprint—my operating system—was formed. Without language.
I mentioned earlier that I was paralyzingly shy. The anxiety was overwhelming. I also had a stutter. Speaking felt like a life-or-death event. My heart would pound, my hands would sweat, my breathing would escalate, and I would feel dizzy, on the verge of fainting. This happened constantly. Panic attacks were frequent. The pressure from my parents—especially my mother—only intensified it.
I came from an upper-middle-class family. Expectations were high. Performance was required to be validated as a human being. I performed to survive, to avoid my mother’s wrath. In India, if you have the means, you can do almost anything to a child—or to another human being.
And she did.
She used violence: regular beatings, delivered however she chose. She used silence as a weapon. She used confinement, locking me in darkness for absurd lengths of time. She humiliated me in front of others to force compliance. This went on throughout my childhood.
I thought I had escaped when I went to boarding school. And for a while, I had. Even though there was corporal punishment, humiliation, and public embarrassment, it was still preferable to what I experienced at home. But it did not last.
A regional conflict broke out where we lived. Terrorist groups were demanding independence. My father was sent abroad. He was never the decision-maker in our household; that role always belonged to my mother. I was taught to be strong, not to express vulnerability, not to be weak. “What happens in the house stays in the house.” Obedience. Silence. Compliance. Do not be a problem. The list was endless—and absurd.
With martial law imposed, our main source of income—a sawmill—was handed over to my step-uncle. My father instructed him to share the income so we could survive. He didn’t. He had an ongoing feud with my mother over land, property, and power. He cut us off completely. He would walk past our house and spit on it almost daily. If I looked at him, he would scream at me, demanding to know what I was staring at.
As a child, I was powerless. He was stronger. He had resources. I did not. We starved. My mother had to call my father in Canada to send money so we could eat at least once a day. The fighting between her and my step-uncle was constant—almost daily.
School made no sense to me. I rebelled against it and against her. Under pressure and stress, she responded the only way she knew how: violence. This lasted for five years. I, in turn, took it out on my siblings. I once severed part of my brother’s finger. I punched my sister when she mocked me.
At the same time, I became suicidal—though I didn’t have the language for it. I punched walls. I rode my bicycle through traffic without brakes at full speed. I provoked fights with my mother to feel something familiar. Then I would shift into people-pleasing to restore a fragile sense of safety.
My hypervigilance escalated. I studied her—every micro-expression, every movement, every energetic shift—often before she herself was aware of it. That is how I was forged. This is where my attachment patterns were formed: the push-pull dynamic of a disorganized or fearful-avoidant attachment. I would feel drawn to someone, then subconsciously push them away once emotional closeness triggered my nervous system. I would be shocked by my own behaviour, then trapped in my head, intellectualizing everything.
I learned to believe that love was conditional—that it came through performance, pride, and approval. I lived in my head throughout childhood and adulthood. I shut down my emotions because they felt unsafe. I chased validation because I had never learned how to generate it internally.
This pattern continued in Canada. There were happy moments—I am not claiming everything was bleak—but this was the foundation of who I became.
I hated being fully seen. I hated people telling me who I was, trying to help me, or asking about my past. That exposure came with shame—shame ingrained as a condition of my existence. I ran from closeness. I sabotaged jobs, relationships, opportunities—over and over again.
I performed to be liked while keeping people at arm’s length. Emotional closeness felt suffocating. I avoided anything real because I could not tolerate myself. The world mirrored that back to me.
I sought emotionally unavailable partners—like me. When someone said they loved me, I froze or fled. Even in Canada, the war with my mother continued. She became more controlling, more critical. She couldn’t hit me anymore, so she used words: I wish you were dead. I wonder why you were even born. She hung up on my friends. She used shame and control relentlessly.
I left home around twenty-one or twenty-two, emotionally underdeveloped, still struggling with speech. I introduced myself using my last name. Public speaking, relationships, and visibility of any kind terrified me. I gravitated toward others who were hurt, who performed, who were emotionally unavailable. Authenticity existed in me—but I had not yet embraced it.
Everything shifted when I was expelled from high school. I lived with friends whose lives were destructive. Watching them made something clear: this was not my path. A voice—persistent and undeniable—told me I needed to go into the arts. I enrolled at Sheridan College, writing an adult entrance exam that I likely failed, yet I was accepted anyway.
At first, I couldn’t draw. Stick figures. My instructor suggested I switch to computer science. I laughed—loudly, involuntarily. Even I was surprised by it. A week later, I started drawing nude models. As if I always could.
That was the beginning of my healing.
I could go into the rest of that journey—how I moved from avoidant to secure—but that is a conversation best had in person.
Looking back, I once saw my mother as monstrous. I had to forgive myself first before I could forgive her. We no longer have a relationship, but I have forgiven her—not forgotten, but made peace. I understand now that she passed on what she was given. I chose to stop the cycle.
I will not pass this pain forward. What I can pass on—if others choose to learn—is my capacity for pattern recognition, hypervigilance, and real-time perception.
I did not write this for closure or validation. I made peace with myself long ago. I wrote this so people don’t mistake perception for mystery or intellect. I read deeply because literature captures human existence in its rawest, unperformed form. That honesty brings relief. It mirrors my own journey—and the person I have become.