i did not know intuition and repugnance counted

At eighteen I had no proper understanding of the ways that constituted encroachment. I had a feeling for them, an intuition, a sense of repugnance for some situations and some people, but I did not know intuition and repugnance counted, did not know I had a right not to like, not to have to put up with, anybody and everybody coming near. Best I could manage in those days was to hope the person concerned would hurry up and say whatever it was he or she thought they were being friendly or obliging by saying, then for them to go away; or else to go away myself, politely and quickly, the very moment I could.

Anna Burns, Milkman