Inside Heilsche

There is a voice in my head that sounds exactly like me. Same language, same rhythm, same sarcasm. For years I believed it was just “who I am” Lately, it feels more like something that moved in long ago and never left. A program. A ghost made of my parents’ fear, my culture’s shame, and all the times I survived by abandoning myself first.

I didn’t grow up in a soft house.

Love was there, but it came mixed with sharp things. Criticism, comparison, sudden storms. One week I was the golden child, the proof that the family would rise. The next week I was the burden, the girl who made life harder. Praise was rare and expensive. Disappointment was free.

The rules changed with the mood.
One day a small mistake was a joke.
Another day the same mistake felt like a crime.

So my body learned one main skill: read the room fast, or get hit by the weather.

I became the girl who scans faces before anyone speaks. I could tell from the way a door closed whether we were in a good day or a bad one. I became helpful, responsible, “so mature for her age.” Adults liked that. They said I was strong.

Underneath, one sentence was written into me:

Your needs are extra.
Your job is -to carry-

averraheilsche

The weight I said yes to

When I look back at my adult life, I see the same scene again and again.

Someone has a crisis.
I step forward.

It doesn’t matter if I am tired, broke, hungry, or broken myself. I still find a way to hold everyone else together. I lower my needs quietly, like dimming the lights in a room so no one notices.

I’ve worked jobs where my salary could barely keep me alive, and still sent most of it away to support others. I’ve stayed up late listening to people who later didn’t even remember what I did for them.

I’ve taken on chaos that had nothing to do with me, just because some part of me panics at the idea of not helping.

The voice in my head always says the same things:

“You can handle more.”
“You’re used to this.”
“You’re stronger than other women.”

When I finally collapse, the voice does not comfort me. It attacks.

“Look at you. Weak again.”
“Other people have it worse.”
“If you really cared, you wouldn’t complain.”

From the outside, it looks noble. Inside, it feels like self‑harm with good PR.

There is a certain kind of woman who appeared in my story: the one in trouble. Pregnant, abandoned, broke, confused, ashamed. She is not my responsibility. But she keeps arriving at my door, in different bodies, different cities, different years.

Logic says: “This is not your problem. Close the door.”
My body says: “Open. She could be your daughter one day.”

So I open. I share my food when I barely eat. I share my bed when I barely sleep. I give clothes, time, attention. I walk through rain and humiliation to get things they need, then go to work the next morning pretending everything is fine.

Nobody sees those nights. Nobody sees me shaking in a bathroom, or counting coins, or wondering how long I can keep doing this.

Even now, writing this, there is a part of me that wants to defend it. To say:
“But this shows my heart. This is who I am. This is my calling.”

Another part of me, quieter but sharper, says:
“This is also how you disappear.”

The “better life” that still runs on old rules.

With time, life changed. I met people who were kinder. I moved away from certain places. I got better positions, different cities, another island. I entered a relationship where a man actually carries part of my load. He helps with money, with home, with practical things. For the first time, I am not doing everything alone.

From the outside, it looks like progress. And it is. My life now is not the same as ten years ago.

But inside, the same old system is still working.

I still feel guilty for resting.
I still feel like I must earn every piece of comfort.
I still shrink my needs because “he already does so much.”
I still hear my mother’s comparisons echo in my head when I look at other women’s “proper” lives.

Sometimes I catch myself standing in a beautiful house, food in the kitchen, kids safe, bills paid… and inside I feel like a thief who will be kicked out if she is not perfect.

That’s not reality. That’s my nervous system still living in my childhood home.

One of the strangest things I notice with my partner now is how my body reacts to trust.

Sometimes I mention going out, seeing friends, doing something that in my past would have created endless questions and suspicion.

I wait, almost unconsciously, for the old script: “Where are you going? With who? What time?” The interrogation that once felt like proof that I matter.

He doesn’t do that.

He says, “Sure. Have fun.”
He asks, “Do you have enough money?”
He tells me, “I trust you.”

On paper, this is healthy. This is what so many women say they want.

But there is a small sting in me. A stupid, painful little feeling that whispers:
“If you really loved me, you would hold on tighter.”

My body was trained to think love = control, jealousy, criticism, being watched. So when I meet a version of love that gives me space, it doesn’t feel like love at first. It feels like distance.

The adult in me understands what is happening. The older code in me does not.

Hackable heart

Reading about “operating systems” made something click inside.

I am not random. I am very predictable.

If you push the right buttons

• Guilt,
• Comparison,
• “be strong,”
• “you understand more than others,”
• “don’t be sensitive” 

I will probably step back into my old role:

The carrier.

The one who adjusts.
The one who forgives.
The one who takes less.

I know exactly how to suffer quietly and call it love.
I still don’t fully know how to receive love without paying for it.

That is a terrifying sentence to write.

So now, when the voice in my head starts:

“Be understanding.”
“Don’t make it harder.”
“Other women would be grateful for this.”
“You must prove you are different, otherwise you will lose everything,”

I try to see it as code, not as God.

This line is my father’s pride.
This one is my mother’s fear.
This one is my culture, always comparing daughters.
This one is all the men who chose someone else and made me feel replaceable.

When I see it like that, the voice becomes a bit less powerful. Still loud, but less holy.

And somewhere under all that noise, a second voice has started to grow. It doesn’t speak in poetry. It usually just says a plain thing like:

“I don’t want to hurt like this anymore.”
or
“I am so tired of proving I deserve basic love.”

That voice is small. Sometimes I ignore it. Sometimes I hear it and cry a little in the bathroom. Sometimes I hear it and do nothing yet, just let it sit there.

But it exists.
And that alone already changes the story.

Because if the first voice is old code, maybe this second one is the beginning of something else.

Not a perfectly healed woman, not a shiny “goddess,” just a human who finally sees that the way she learned to love is killing her slowly.

Averraheilsche

And once you see that, you can’t un‑see it.

You can keep obeying the old voice for a while.
But a part of you will always know:

this is not love,
this is just the only version of love your nervous system remembers.