Ten Things to Hold Onto If You Live in Fear in Your Home |
I met Jennifer in Medellín when she accompanied Mateo to one of his restorative justice sessions. She did not sit next to him. She chose a chair at the back of the session room, hands clasped tightly, eyes fixed on him as if watching something that could change direction at any moment. Mateo spoke calmly about his past. Jennifer listened with a tension that revealed what words had not yet surfaced.
Mateo’s story follows a pattern psychology knows well. Silence in the home. Absence of emotional listening in school. A society that notices behavior but ignores pain. As a child, Mateo learned that survival required toughness, that vulnerability invited harm, and that no one came when he spoke. The street answered where institutions failed, and aggression became his language of belonging.
Jennifer knew this history. She knew how Mateo had taken care of his siblings while no one cared for him. She understood how neglect shapes emotional regulation and how trauma turns into anger when there is no space to be heard. She believed that love and understanding might reach parts of him that life had hardened.
Yet understanding did not make her safe.
In the session room, her body reacted before her voice could. She startled at the raised tones others ignored. She avoided eye contact with men whose posture resembled Mateo’s restrained intensity. She admitted quietly that she feared what might happen after they left the room more than anything said inside it. This fear did not reflect exaggeration. It reflected lived experience encoded in her