What Took Me So Long | Healing After a Toxic Relationship

I stayed.

Long after the silence turned sharp.

Long after my laughter

became performance,

and my needs

became negotiation.

I stayed when my body screamed no

but my loyalty whispered yes,

as if devotion could redeem

what was never safe to begin with.

I called it love.

I called it hope.

But deep down,

I knew it was fear,

the kind that wears lipstick

and smiles through the ache,

the kind that begs,

“Maybe this time…”

And when it ended,

I didn’t just grieve him.

I grieved me—the woman who twisted herself

into smaller and smaller shapes

just to fit inside his inability to love.

Shame hit hard.

Not for being hurt, but for not leaving when I first knew.

For teaching myself

to tolerate what I swore I never would.

For staying

until the mirror forgot my name.

But here’s the part I never say out loud:

I was doing my best

with the tools I had,

with a heart trained to earn love

by bleeding quietly.

Forgiveness wasn’t a single moment.

It was a slow unlearning, a thousand whispered truths

in the mirror

until I could look into my own eyes

without flinching.

It was telling that loyal, aching version of me:

You weren’t weak.

You were wired to survive.

It wasn’t your fault

you thought scraps were the feast,

you’d never been offered more.

You thought staying meant love.

Now you know that leaving does too.

And I love her.

I love the woman who stayed

and the one who finally left.

Both were me.

Both were brave.