…a story of ruin, rebirth, and remembering who I was before I forgot myself for love
Heartbreak is kind of a madness, isn’t it?
It creeps in slow, then hits all at once, like a tidal wave in the chest, a split in the psyche, a thousand tiny cuts behind the eyes every time you close them and see his face. You don’t just grieve the person. You grieve who you were with them. And who you hoped you’d get to be, if they had only stayed.
There was a time I thought love meant holding on tighter. Staying longer. Being patient. Proving myself. Making excuses. I thought pain was just part of love’s price. I didn’t know that what I was calling love was actually an unraveling – of boundaries, of dignity, of my own reflection. But when you want to be loved badly enough, you’ll contort yourself into someone unrecognizable just to feel chosen.
And I did.
The heartbreak I survived wasn’t just about a boy leaving. It was about a slow, soul-level abandonment – not by him, but by me. I had slowly walked away from myself in that relationship. I dulled my shine to soothe his insecurities. I censored my voice to avoid his explosions. I explained my intuition away because I didn’t want to be “paranoid.” I let him convince me I was hard to love, too emotional, too sensitive, too much. So I shrunk.
By the time I realized how deep I was in the wrong story, it was already swallowing me.
What’s cruel about this kind of heartbreak is that it doesn’t happen all at once. He didn’t leave with a single slam of a door. It was more like tiny disappearances, one after another. The texts that stopped coming, the affection that vanished over night, the way my joy annoyed him instead of pulling him closer. The way he would punish me with silence. And I kept hoping it would turn around. I told myself maybe if I was more calm, more sexy, more supportive, more perfect, he’d soften again. He’d choose me.
But the truth was, I was already alone. And the only thing I was holding onto was the fantasy of what it could’ve been.
That’s the part no one tells you. Sometimes the heartbreak comes not from what happened, but what never did.
When I finally left, or maybe more honestly, when I was left – because emotional absence is its own kind of abandonment – I expected relief. I thought, Now I can breathe. But the pain didn’t leave with him. It curled up in my chest and stayed. I didn’t recognize myself anymore. I was just trying to survive the ache, the insomnia, the flashbacks, the questioning. It’s terrifying to sit alone with your own thoughts after being emotionally manipulated. You start to wonder what’s real and what’s been twisted. You replay arguments in your head and suddenly realize how many times you were guilt-tripped, gaslit, dismissed. But the scariest part? You still miss him anyway.
I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t concentrate. Music hurt. Silence hurt more. Everything I wore reminded me of how I used to dress for him. Even the way I made my bed felt lonely. I started writing down my thoughts because talking to friends didn’t help. They didn’t see what I saw. They didn’t understand how someone could break you and still be the person you wanted most in the world. I didn’t need advice. I needed someone to sit in the grief with me and say, Yeah, this fking hurts. You’re not crazy.*
But no one said that. So I said it to myself.
That’s how the healing began. Not in a therapists office or on a yoga mat or with some clean break that gave me instant peace. It began in the quiet moments where I let myself rage. Where I let myself cry for hours and didn’t rush it. Where I stopped trying to “be over it” and just let myself exist in the wreckage for a while. There was something oddly sacred about that grief. Like I was being broken open for a reason. Like something inside me needed to burn so that something else could rise.
It wasn’t elegant. It wasn’t kind. It was messy and dark. I said things I didn’t mean. I thought about going back more times than I’ll admit. I romanticized the bare minimum. I ignored red flags in my memories because I missed the way he made me laugh. But somewhere along the way, I started seeing things more clearly. The spell broke. I stopped putting his potential on a pedestal. I stopped blaming myself for the ways he failed to show up. I stopped rewriting the past to protect my pride.
I started remembering who I was before him.
And she was worth grieving too.
Because the truth is, I didn’t just survive heartbreak. I walked through a kind of death. The death of a version of me who was willing to settle for crumbs. The death of illusions. The death of codependency dressed up as passion. The death of “maybe one day.”
And in that death, I met myself again.
There were days I still longed for his presence. Days I’d imagine bumping into him and looking so radiant he’d regret everything. Days I’d fall asleep wondering if he missed me. But then there were other days – quiet, beautiful ones – where I realized I hadn’t thought of him all morning. Where I noticed how much more peaceful my body felt. Where I caught my own reflection and smiled because I was coming home.
Healing isn’t a straight line. Some days I still feel echoes of that grief. But I don’t fight it. I let it pass through like a wave, knowing it won’t drown me anymore. Because I know how to swim in my own storm now.
After stripping me bare, heartbreak gave me – clarity. Accountability. Self-respect. It gave me an inner compass that no longer points to anyone else’s opinion. It gave me sacred rage, yes, but also sacred softness. A new definition of love. One rooted in reciprocity, safety, and truth.
I survived heartbreak not because I became heartless – but because I stayed tender. I let it change me. I let it teach me. I let it burn what wasn’t real. And I stopped asking why he didn’t love me right, and started asking why I didn’t love myself enough to walk away the first time I felt small.
That’s the real heartbreak. That I once thought being loved meant being quiet.
But now I know better.
I didn’t lose my mind. I reclaimed it. I didn’t lose myself. I remembered her. And she is everything I ever needed to come home to.
Lanalefay 