“When Love Hurts More Than It Heals”

They say love is supposed to be beautiful. Soft. Safe. But the love I knew didn’t feel like that. It was sharp. It was heavy. It was the kind of love that pulled me in and then broke me, over and over, until I couldn’t tell where the pain ended and the passion began.

I thought I had found the love of my life. Every part of me believed it. My heart, my body, my soul — all tied up in this one person. And for a while, it felt like everything. The connection, the intensity, the way they could pull me close and make the rest of the world disappear. I thought that was love. But the truth? It wasn’t love. It was control. It was domination. It was a cycle of being lifted high just to be dropped even lower. It was the slow erosion of my trust in myself.

And here’s the hardest part — I got addicted to it. Addicted to the highs after the lows. Addicted to the twisted comfort of familiar chaos. Addicted to the way it made me feel like I was fighting for something worth having, even when all I was doing was losing myself.

Now, I’m here. Alone. And struggling.

I don’t know how to love without suspicion. I don’t know how to trust without scanning for red flags. I don’t know how to feel safe in someone’s arms without wondering how they’ll hurt me later. Toxic love rewired me. It made me believe that love without tension isn’t real, that kindness without conditions is fake, that peace is just the calm before the storm.

And I hate that it did that to me.

Some days, I miss them — or at least the version of them I thought was real. I miss the rush, the way they made me feel like I was wanted, even if that want came wrapped in cruelty. And admitting that is ugly. It makes me feel weak. But it’s the truth. I wish I could say I’m healed. That I’ve found someone new, someone good, and that I’m living in the kind of love that doesn’t hurt. But right now, I’m still unlearning. I’m still breaking the habit of confusing intensity with intimacy.

Here’s what I am learning: Love that hurts isn’t love. Love that makes you smaller, quieter, more afraid — isn’t love. Love that needs you to lose yourself to keep it alive — isn’t love.

One day, I want to know what it feels like to be loved without being destroyed. One day, I want to trust again without waiting for the knife in my back. One day, I want to believe that love can be soft, safe, and steady — and that I deserve that kind of love.

But until that day, I’m taking it slow.
I’m learning to love myself enough to walk away from what hurts — even if it feels like home.
Because some homes aren’t worth living in.