Relationships were never easy for me growing up.

It was hard for me to form any kind of real, lasting connection with anyone. I could get close to someone for a few days, maybe even a week. I could laugh with them, share stories, feel a sense of comfort beginning to grow.

But the moment, the exact moment, I felt myself starting to love that person, or need that person, something inside me would shut down.

I would pull away.
I would stop returning calls.
I would create distance so quickly that even I didn’t fully understand what had just happened.

People have always said I had the worst taste in men.

The truth is… I didn’t.

I chose men who were not perfect, just like me.

In my mind, a “perfect” man would see the deep pain inside of me. He would be overwhelmed by it. He would be afraid of it. He would be intimidated by the depth of what I had survived. Someone who had never walked through darkness would never truly understand the shadows I carried.

So I chose people who had also survived things. People who knew what it felt like to hurt. People who, I believed, would not run when they saw the cracks in me.

The sad part is, I chose people who were exactly like me.

People who built walls instead of bridges.
People who shut others out before they could be shut out themselves.
People who had learned to stop caring about what others felt because they had become numb to their own pain.
People who did not trust anyone including me.

For a long time, I thought this meant I didn’t believe I deserved better.

Now I understand it differently.

It wasn’t about worth.
It was about familiarity.

Pain recognized pain.
Survival recognized survival.

I was drawn to what felt known, even when what felt known was also what hurt the most.

There was a strange comfort in knowing that if I pushed them away, they would understand why. And if they pushed me away, I would understand why. It created an unspoken agreement a relationship built on shared damage rather than shared healing.

But that kind of connection comes with its own consequences.

Because when you build a relationship with someone who cannot fully trust… you also become someone who cannot fully trust. Even when they are doing nothing wrong. Even when they are trying to love you the best way they know how.

And that cycle can follow you for years without you even realizing you are still living inside it.

It took me a long time to even recognize that this was a pattern.

For years, I believed this was simply who I was. Independent. Guarded. Strong enough not to need anyone. I wore those traits like armor, convinced they were strengths instead of shields.

But eventually, life has a way of holding up a mirror.

I began to notice the same endings, over and over again. The same feelings of closeness followed by the same sudden urge to escape. The same quiet loneliness that would creep in after I had successfully pushed someone away before they could ever leave me first.

At some point, survival instincts that once protected you can start to isolate you.

What once kept you safe can begin to keep you alone.

Recognizing that truth is not easy. It requires looking back at choices you made and understanding that they were not mistakes born from weakness — they were strategies born from fear. Fear of abandonment. Fear of betrayal. Fear of being fully seen and then rejected anyway.

When you grow up learning that love can disappear overnight, or worse, turn into pain without warning, your mind becomes wired to anticipate loss. You begin to leave emotionally before anyone else gets the chance. When you grow up, knowing every single adult in your life, lied, you anticipate the heartbreak, the disappointment.

And so the cycle continues.

You choose what feels familiar.
You repeat what feels predictable.
You recreate what you once survived because at least you know how to survive it again. Instinct kicks in, and you self-sabotage yourself. You become aware of things, you think are new, but really, they are the same things, repeating themselves because you shifted your road that way.

But awareness changes things too.

The moment you begin to see the pattern, you also begin to see the possibility of something different. Not perfect. Not easy. But different.

And different is where healing quietly begins.

All my love,

Raven Sapphire