Marsha GillSeries: What Was Inherited — A Chapter-by-Chapter Healing Read
Book: The Vanishing Half
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Before We Begin, Let Me Tell You What This Is
Before we step into chapter one, I want to slow us down for just a moment and share what we’re doing here and why. First, I love to read. First, I started with hard copies, then I went digital, and now I’m back with hard copies. Right before the holidays, I started reading The Vanishing Half and thought why not talk about it.
So what this is not…This is not a book review.
This is not….a literary analysis.
And it’s not about racing through a good novel and moving on.
This series—What Was Inherited: A Chapter-by-Chapter Healing Read—is an invitation to read The Vanishing Half differently. What I mean by that is not just with your head.
But with your body. With your memories. With the parts of you that adapted early and never got to ask questions. I’m reading this book through the lens of emotional inheritance, the things we absorb before we have language for them. You know, the fears, silences, expectations, and survival strategies that get passed down quietly, often lovingly, and almost always unconsciously.
Because healing doesn’t happen in summaries. Most women I work with were taught directly or indirectly to keep it moving. I was also taught:
- Don’t dwell.
- Don’t look back.
- That was a long time ago.
- You’re fine now.
But unprocessed stories don’t disappear. They show up later. They show up in relationships. In our nervous systems. In how we use—or don’t use—our voices. In leadership. In motherhood. So we’re slowing this down. Chapter by chapter. Moment by moment. Not to blame the past, but to finally understand it.
Now… let’s step into chapter one.
The Feeling That Opens the Story
Chapter one doesn’t ease you in. Nope, not at all. It moves. Two girls. Running. Leaving. Escaping. And what stirred me most wasn’t where they were going; it was how early the decision had already been made about who they needed to become to survive. Before Stella and Desiree have language for identity, colorism, race, womanhood, or belonging, they already understand something many of us learned young too:
Safety sometimes requires disappearing.
That lesson doesn’t come from one dramatic moment. It’s absorbed quietly through tone, fear, environment, and unspoken rules. And as I read, I found myself thinking: How many of us started running long before we realized we were?
What Stirred Me in This Chapter
What stayed with me wasn’t just the escape itself. It was how normal it felt. There’s no long debate. No drawn-out scene about whether leaving is the right thing to do. The urgency tells us something important: this decision had already been rehearsed internally. In other words, the body knew before the mind could explain it. Wow!
That felt familiar.
So many women I sit with didn’t decide to become emotionally guarded, hyper-independent, overly responsible, over-function, or invisible.
They adapted.
They learned early:
- Don’t draw attention.
- Don’t need too much.
- Don’t make it harder.
- Don’t be seen unless it’s safe.
Like Stella and Desiree, they didn’t know they were shaping an identity. They thought they were learning how to survive. That’s what stirred me most, the quietness of it. I mean way survival starts to feel like personality. How many times have we said this is personality, but is it really?
When Survival Becomes an Emotional Inheritance
This is where chapter one opens the door for deeper work. Emotional inheritance isn’t just what our parents told us. It’s what they modeled. It’s what they feared. It’s what they never had language for themselves.
In chapter one, we meet the twins, and they are already carrying:
- Generational fear
- Community messages
- Unspoken rules
- Learned silence
And none of it started with them. This is something I remind women of often, especially daughters who are hard on themselves: You didn’t invent your coping strategies. You inherited them.
Emotional inheritance passes down messages like:
- Blend in to stay safe.
- Don’t draw attention.
- Belonging is conditional.
- Acceptance matters more than truth.
- Visibility comes with risk.
No one sat the twins down and explained this. It lived in the air. Just like in many of our families.
The Cost of Early Adaptation
One thing The Vanishing Half does well, even in this opening chapter, is show us how early adaptation becomes expensive later. What protects you as a child can constrain you as an adult. I see this all the time: the girl who learned to stay quiet becomes the woman who struggles to use her voice, the daughter who learned to manage everyone’s emotions becomes the adult who doesn’t know her own, the one who learned to disappear becomes the high achiever who feels unseen and emotionally starved.
The twins didn’t know they were choosing a lifelong pattern. They thought they were choosing relief. And isn’t that true for so many of us?
We didn’t choose perfectionism….we chose praise.
We didn’t choose emotional distance….we chose safety.
We didn’t choose independence….we chose not to be disappointed again.
Emotional Inheritance Is Not a Personal Failure
This matters, so I want to say it plainly. Too many women read stories like this and turn inward with judgment:
- Why didn’t I do better?
- Why does this still affect me?
- Why can’t I just move on?
I believe chapter one invites a more compassionate lens. What if your patterns make sense? What if they were formed in response to something real? What if the work isn’t to criticize the survival strategy but to gently ask if it still serves you?
That’s the work.
Not blame.
Not rewriting history.
But understanding the inheritance.
The Tension Between Safety and Alignment
One of the themes that begins here and will continue through this seriesis the tension between: Who we become to stay safe
And who we are when we’re aligned. This tension shows up as:
- “I’m successful, but I don’t feel like myself.”
- “I did everything right, but something feels missing.”
- “I don’t know who I am outside of the role I play.”
Chapter one reminds us that some identities are chosen under pressure. And pressure narrows options. This isn’t condemnation. It’s context. And context is healing.
A Gentle Reflection for You
Before moving on, I want to offer you one question not to answer perfectly, but to sit with. What version of yourself did you learn to become to feel safe, and what might it cost you to keep living there?
Notice what comes up before you explain it away.
Notice what your body knows.
Notice if there’s grief, relief, resistance, or clarity.
All of it belongs.
If You Want to Read Along
If this chapter stirred something in you, and I suspect it may have, you’re invited to read along with us. You can find The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett on Amazon here.
Read slowly. This is not a book to rush. It’s a book to listen to on the page and within yourself.
As We Continue This Series…
This work isn’t about judging choices…ours or the characters’. Let’s not do that.
It’s about naming what was inherited, honoring why it existed, and deciding with compassion what we no longer need to carry forward.
Chapter one reminds us that survival stories deserve understanding before transformation. And we’ll keep walking this out together—chapter by chapter.
