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Estranged, Not Erased: Reclaiming the Voice She Stole. By Taliya

I’m Taliya, I’m 20 years old and I study English at university. My hobbies include reading, foraging, spending time in nature, and collecting teapots! I love whimsical fashion and I am very passionate about sustainability. I love all animals, especially cats and rabbits!  If you’d like you connect, you can find me on Instagram: @fforest.fairyy and @littleladybug_ library. I am also on TikTok: @fforestfairyy. CW: I do mention suicide in this blog.


Unwanted and unlovable. That’s how I would’ve described myself when I arrived at university. Estranged, autistic, and paralysed by anxiety, my mother’s opinion was one I’d accepted as the truth. After years of being told I was not enough, disgusting, embarrassing, weird, these thoughts became my own.


When I was fifteen, I made an attempt on my own life.


An entire future ahead of me, and I didn’t want it. I couldn’t imagine ever escaping my situation or my mind. I believed I was worthless, a burden, and that I made everyone’s life a misery. I would never achieve anything. I didn’t think I deserved to be happy, and I didn’t want to live.


When I arrived at university, these beliefs came with me. They filled the empty seats beside me in lectures, suffocated me in seminars, choking me with anxiety. Putting my hand up, talking, and even staying in classes felt impossible. I had to leave, hide in the toilets to ride out the panic attacks… I couldn’t breathe.


Silence became my sanctuary. I thought if I became small enough, quiet enough, I’d be safe.

But…


University has taught me that there is safety in being seen; hope in being heard. I didn’t know that I would survive long enough to meet the person I would become.


At fifteen, I was done. At twenty, I’m planning my future – applying to Oxbridge, pursuing an academic career. If I could travel back in time, I’d give younger me a hug. Her and I are two different people. Strangers who smile across the street but never meet.


Being estranged meant asking for help felt unnatural, almost forbidden. If I couldn’t do it myself, surely that just proved my mother right? Wrong.


The support I have at university has changed my life. Lecturers, support services, friends. I have discovered what it means to be part of a community. Slowly, friendship stopped feeling like something that only happened to others. I began sharing my ideas in classes instead of staring at the floor desperate to disappear. I anticipated being wrong, being judged, looking stupid, but that didn’t happen. My ideas were welcomed. I was allowed to exist.


As I grew in confidence, I became an Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Representative, advocating for students whose voices are not always heard. I hosted an event for estranged students, and I was awarded Undergraduate English Student Rep of the Year. Awarded for using my voice, not sanctioned. The girl who couldn’t hold a conversation now speaks up for others.


Growing up, freedom was not something I experienced. My mother was an alcoholic, extremely abusive and controlling. I was not allowed to go out or develop my own interests. I was not her daughter but her puppet.


University has given me the freedom to meet myself as a person rather than a puppet. I now have hobbies, interests. I study English, and I love medieval literature and folklore. I enjoy crocheting, knitting, learning German and Latin, foraging, and spending time in nature. I adore whimsical fashion, dressing how I want every single day. Being a person is often taken for granted, until you’re denied access to it altogether.


Leaving the house wasn’t allowed, and now I spend my time wandering through wildflowers searching for butterflies and beetles. I’m no longer locked in a bedroom, angry at the world and scared of the person who was supposed to protect me. Instead, I am myself. And, as it goes, I quite like her.


I no longer see my mother every time I look in the mirror. I no longer fear becoming her. In the mirror, I see someone kind. Curious. Happy. Wanted. Loved.

My voice was never the problem. The problem was the person who stole it. Being estranged is part of my story, but not the end of it.


Estranged? Yes.
Erased? Never.

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