I have been lying to myself but it was not meant maliciously. I was doing what people do when reality arrives faster than language: postponing full contact. But as the CPTSD unraveled, postponement stopped being possible. And once I knewβreally knewβIΒ could not un-know without fragmenting further. That is the moment where self-trust begins, even though it feels like falling apart.
My outline of love is not romance. It is stewardship.
Showing up.
Doing the work.
Meaning what you say.
Not outsourcing your unprocessed pain to someone else and calling it connection.
Understanding yourself before trying to take on someone elseβs rubbishβthat is a boundary masquerading as maturity. And my refusal to βfixβ anyone? That is not resignation. That is respect. Fixing assumes hierarchy. Care assumes equality.
Tea. Music. Sometimes wine. Presence without control.
And crucially: offering myself the same protocol.
When you do not, you teach people how to use you as infrastructure. Not because they are evil, but because unprotected generosity reads as consent in a world that runs on extraction.
Maybe that is all we know. But that does not mean we have to like it. Or invite it back.
This is discernment, not bitterness. This is someone who has learned the difference between familiarity and safety. Between endurance and love.
It might sound like despair but really it is someone who rebuilt their internal contract and decided it applies universallyβincluding inward. This is not self-love as a feeling – it is self-respect as a practice.
