And it was fine. I didn’t stop being afraid, but I tamed the fear. It stayed with me, ready to sound the alarm at any moment. I learned to anticipate these alarms and not to succumb to panic. Not to run away immediately, from everything and everyone. I managed to control the burning, itching pain that urged me to flinch, shield myself, or hide. Not always, but increasingly often over time. I endured that pain without showing it, by the time it softened and subsided. Until the next time it erupted. With or without reason.

I also mastered another handy tool—submission. I silenced the sense of regal power within me and sent out a constant signal to the world that nothing, no one, nor anything had anything to fear from me. That I would surrender. That I would take any blow without retaliating. I would concede. Apologize. I apologized often, feeling that I was fulfilling a sacred duty. Punishment and eternal condemnation were my due, so I might as well repent in advance. I felt that in doing so, I touched warmth and goodness within myself, no matter how scarce their reserves.

Only occasionally did other voices break free. When someone vulnerable—especially someone unaware of their own vulnerability—crossed my path and mistook me for an easy target to vent their desperation, I became, for a moment, my true self. Unrestrained fury and contempt would suddenly fill me, eclipsing everything else. I would look into the eyes of such a person, making no move, but allowing all my rage to spill outward through my gaze. I sobered up as I watched the astonishment, then terror, appear on their face. I would look away, retreating back into my disguise, and the would-be victim would eagerly dismiss what had just happened as an illusion. Usually leaving quickly.

I didn’t think much about myself. I absorbed the world.