Help yourself HEAL

Time is not a cure-all for past pain, writes Madeline Popelka, but it can create the space, opportunity and perspective to set intentions, and take the first step on your healing journey

Growing up, when I did something that made my mum angry, like talk back, she’d furiously rush to the corner of the kitchen where she kept the broom. She wouldn’t say anything at first, but I knew what the broom meant, so when she did this, I’d run up the stairs as fast as I could. She’d come after me, yelling, ‘What did you say?’ My sisters and I didn’t have locks on our doors, so once I’d get to my room, I’d hide in my closet or under my bed. If I had a big enough head start, I’d sometimes sneak into my parents’ room and hide in their closet under my dad’s suits. As I got older and my legs got longer, I was able to keep my bedroom door shut – and my mum out – by sitting with my back to the door with my feet pressed against my dresser in front of me.

My mum always knew where I was hiding, but she never pulled me out from the closet or from under the bed to strike me, as her parents had struck her. In Vietnam, corporal punishment was the norm, and she endured physical pain daily. Yet she knew that, in America, it wasn’t an acceptable form of discipline. Instead, she would smack the broom against a door, the floor, a bed frame, or the banister, to scare me into behaving better. And it worked – I was terrified.