There is a specific kind of grief that comes with realizing your natural softness was treated as an open invitation by people who operate in the dark. When you are young, sweet, and fundamentally inclined to see the good in others, you assume the world is governed by the same baseline empathy you carry inside your own chest. You read books, you absorb wisdom from strangers on quiet blog posts, and you think you can intellectualize your way out of harm.
Then life hands you the kind of lessons that leave bruises on your nervous system.
If I could sit down with my younger self today, across a table with a warm cup of coffee, I wouldn’t hand her a sugar-coated list of pleasantries. I would give her the raw survival manual I had to learn the hard way. Here are the truths I wish someone had carved into stone for me back then:
- Your intuition is never wrong; your politeness is the danger. That subtle unease in your stomach when someone gets too close too fast, or inserts themselves into your life isn’t anxiety. It is data. Never override your gut to spare someone else’s feelings.
- Do not trust anyone fully, not your friends, not your lovers, and not even your family. When you are young, you trust people so easily. You genuinely love and trust the people in your life because you assume they share your clean intentions. But young people simply do not have the life experience yet to see the traps being laid around them. People call this mindset cynical, but I do not care about sounding politically correct or playing into modern therapeutic nonsense anymore. Fuck all that keep-your-circle-small advice; it is overrated. You are your inner circle, and without you, there is no circle at all. Protect yourself fiercely. Prioritize yourself as your number one priority. Have a hundred acquaintances and call them friends just to fit into societal norms if you have to, but always know that you are your own real friend.
- Never let anyone isolate you. Young people simply shouldn’t be alone with anyone really. Even grown-ass women should refrain from being fully isolated. It is always best to be near others who can witness or help if needed. Never go to a desert or a heavily isolated rural area where you cannot even access emergency services, or where there are no neighbors you can run to for help if your phone gets taken away. We live in a world where people trust so easily that they will let a man take them to a private home alone, or where young men pick up drunk women at clubs, shove them into Ubers, and take them out of public view into total vulnerability. Movies like Revenge show us how quickly those isolated choices turn into nightmares. Keep yourself visible. Keep your footing.
- Treat substances as a weapon of vulnerability. You must naturally refrain from drugs and alcohol, or if you cannot, be extremely careful. Having your drink spiked at a bar happens, and nine times out of ten, it is not a stranger. It is someone you know. It is a jealous frenemy trying to sabotage you, a manipulative person in your group, or even a mentor (aka your “OG”). People use substances to make you vulnerable, humiliate you, take advantage of you, or ruin your credibility so that when you try to speak out, no one listens. It reminds me of Sharp Objects, where a woman in a small town tried to warn people about what was happening, but because everyone dismissed her as the town drunk, her warnings fell on deaf ears.
- Gossip is a weapon, not a conversation. People who collect and narrate the total destruction or scandals of others are not your friends. They are predators mapping the terrain. If they talk to you about everyone else, they are talking about you to everyone else.
- Silence is the only weapon that starves a toxic person. When a pathological manipulator wants to drag you into the mud, fighting back gives them the exact oxygen they crave. Let them scream into the void or talk to their flying monkeys. Your quiet, safe, and comfortable life is their ultimate defeat.
- Your financial independence is your ticket to freedom. Avoid the debt trap and the trap of convenience. We spend so much damn money on takeouts, food delivery, and shopping apps, and to make matters worse, on credit cards. From a young age, just as we turn into adults, we are handed crippling student loans for degrees or education we are not even sure we want. Every dollar you save, every boundary you draw around your peace, and every step you take away from these modern financial traps is a brick in your exit strategy. No one can trap you when you have the means to walk away.
We write essays and put our stories out into the ether because the women who came before us left lanterns in the dark so we would not feel entirely alone. They threw lifelines across digital spaces.
One day, I will gather all these pieces, bind them into a book, and place it on a shelf. And somewhere, a younger girl who is sitting in her room feeling naive, sweet, and overwhelmed by the noise of the world will open those pages and find a map out. That is why we survive. That is why we write.
~ Karny
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