10/22/2025
There is a wound that so many of us carry into adulthood. It is the belief that we are unlovable because the people who were supposed to love us unconditionally didn’t know how, or chose not to.
When you’re a child and the people raising you hurt you, betray you, neglect you, or frighten you, you don’t have the tools to understand that the problem is them. So you make it about you. You decide you must be too much, not enough, broken, bad. You stop trusting your own worth because the first people who should have reflected it back to you couldn’t see it, or didn’t want to.
And then you grow up and choose partners who confirm what you learned as a child. That love comes with conditions. That safety has to be earned. That your needs are too much. That your voice must stay small.
Healing begins the moment you understand that you were never the problem. A child’s love is pure and instinctive, and when it’s met with cruelty or indifference, the failure belongs to the adult, not the child.
You didn’t stop being worthy of love. You stopped believing you were. And now the work is remembering. Not because they finally see you, but because you refuse to unsee yourself anymore.
You deserved better then. You deserve better now. And the little girl inside you who stopped loving herself to survive is still here, waiting for you to come back for her. ꩜♥︎ Ella
📞 U.S. National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233 or text START to 88788
💻 Chat online: thehotline.org
💜 Love is Respect (for young people): 1-866-331-9474 or text LOVEIS to 22522
🌍 Global support: nomore.org
