Welcome back to Shift Happens: Bloodbath & Beyond.

Let’s talk about living at home when ‘home’ feels less like shelter and more like solitary confinement.

I call it hostage of the house. Because yes, technically, I have keys. I can leave. I can enter. But there’s always someone standing at the metaphorical door, making sure I know who really holds the power.

It’s not protection. It’s possession. And possession doesn’t feel like love—it feels like lockdown.

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Picture this: I’m finally with Jonathan, soaking up what little time we have before he’s gone for a month. My dad waits up—not to greet me, not to talk, not to ask how I am.

No. He waits so he can snatch me away, like I’m contraband sneaking in past curfew. And the second he does? He goes to bed. Sleeps like a baby.

Because control doesn’t care about connection—it only cares that you know who’s in charge.

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Everyone says, ‘But you’re lucky—you have a roof over your head.’

Sure. Lucky. Like a bird in a gilded cage is ‘lucky.’

What they don’t see is how the walls listen. How every door creak feels monitored. How your presence is tolerated but not trusted.

The truth is, a house is only a home when freedom lives there too. Otherwise, it’s just… climate-controlled captivity. Or in my case, not climate-controlled at all.

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If you’re listening, maybe you’ve been a hostage too.

Not just in a house—but in a relationship, in a family system, in a version of yourself that somebody else built.

And maybe you’ve told yourself, ‘I’ll just stay until I have enough saved. Until it’s the right time. Until I’m strong enough.

But let me tell you something: hostages don’t get strong by waiting. They get strong by planning their escape.

So if you needed permission—this is it. Plot your exit. Hide your stash. Build your freedom fund. And when the door cracks open, run. No looking back.

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This has been Shift Happens: Bloodbath & Beyond.

I may still be a hostage of the house—but the escape plan is already written.

Catch you next time, maybe on the outside.