22/01/2026
I LOVED HIM MORE THAN I LOVED MYSELF🖤🥀💔💘
He was my first love. I remember the first time I told him I loved him, how my chest tightened, my stomach fluttered. I thought love was supposed to feel this intense, this all-consuming.
But he was a narcissist. At first, it was charming, he was attentive, funny, made me feel seen. But slowly, the cracks started showing. He gaslighted me constantly. If I questioned him, he’d say, “You’re imagining things. You’re too sensitive. You always overreact.” I believed him because I wanted to believe him.
Love was not enough. Not when he put his hands on me. I had bruises, my arms, my ribs, my thighs, hidden under clothes, hidden from the world. And still, I stayed. I stayed because I needed him. I needed the love and the approval I longed for.
He knew my vulnerabilities, my trauma, my low self-esteem and he used them like a map to keep me trapped. Every apology, every promise, every late-night confession of “I need you” tied me closer to him.
I remember one night after a fight. My arm was bruised, my face streaked with tears. I thought maybe I should leave. But when he whispered, “I can’t live without you,” I stayed. And that was the trap I loved him more than I loved myself.
By the time I finally left, I had lost pieces of me I didn’t even know were gone. But even then, I remember thinking, “I survived loving someone who didn’t deserve me. That counts for something, doesn’t it?”