QUOTE : I wasn’t empty because others abandoned me, but because I had abandoned myself. Who I am was repressed—collateral damage in a long-term coping mechanism gone unchecked. My subconscious had put up partitions to contain the flood of emotion in the wake of trauma, but in doing so, my identity was trapped and locked away as well. As a result, everything repressed would one day come forward—without warning, without control, and without a shutoff valve.