There was a night I sat on the bathroom floor, phone in hand, heart in pieces, trying to quiet the urge to text him one last time. The city outside was sleeping. My reflection in the mirror looked older: not in years, but in exhaustion. The kind of tired that lives behind the eyes. It wasn’t the first time I’d been there, wrapped in that hollow ache that comes after another argument that wasn’t really an argument: just me trying to be understood and him pretending not to understand. That was the night it clicked: I wasn’t fighting for love anymore. I was fighting for my dignity. And somehow, in the process of proving my worth to someone who kept questioning it, I forgot that I already had it.

How chaos becomes a drug

Toxic love doesn’t feel toxic at first. It feels like a rush, like gravity. The way he said your name, the way his attention felt like sunlight. You tell yourself this is what chemistry feels like. But what you don’t realize is that you’ve confused intensity for intimacy. It’s easy to do when your nervous system has been trained to equate calm with boredom. The highs are electric. The lows are brutal. He disappears, and you spiral. He returns, and your body releases dopamine like it’s oxygen. You start living for the apology, not the relationship. You call that love because chaos feels familiar. But familiarity isn’t safety, it’s repetition. I used to say, “He brings out something in me,” not realizing that “something” was my survival mode.

The slow death of self

It doesn’t happen all at once. It’s subtle. You laugh less. You explain more. You walk on eggshells around moods that shift without warning. You stop sharing the things that make you light up because somehow, everything turns into an argument. And when your friends ask if you’re okay, you smile and say, “It’s just complicated.” But what you really mean is: I’m scared to admit what I already know. I became a version of myself I didn’t recognize: careful, apologetic, muted. I’d scroll back through old photos just to remember the woman I was before him: the one who smiled with her whole face, who filled rooms with energy instead of shrinking to make space for someone else’s ego. The day I left wasn’t dramatic. There were no slammed doors or long speeches. Just me, standing in the quiet, realizing that leaving him meant choosing me. And for the first time in years, that felt like enough.

The aftermath

The healing didn’t look graceful. It looked like crying in grocery store aisles because the song he played on his guitar came on. It looked like deleting messages I’d already memorized. It looked like sitting alone at dinner, fighting the instinct to check my phone for validation. Healing was learning that peace isn’t loud: it’s steady. It’s mornings where no one’s voice shakes the walls. It’s the silence that used to feel unbearable now feeling like oxygen. And it’s rediscovering the simple things that remind you who you were before the storm: Your coffee ritual. The scent of your perfume on a new pillow. Music that isn’t tied to him. The sacred stillness of coming back home, not to a place, but to yourself.

When love returns in a new form

Months later, when someone new showed up, kind eyes, quiet confidence, I didn’t know what to do. He didn’t chase. He didn’t disappear. He didn’t make me question my sanity. He was simply there. And my body didn’t know what to do with “there.” I waited for chaos. For the emotional whiplash I’d been conditioned to call connection. But it never came. And that’s when I realized: peace can be terrifying when you’ve only known survival. Slowly, I let him in: not because I needed him to fix anything, but because I was ready to experience love that didn’t require me to lose myself. Healthy love didn’t arrive as fireworks. It arrived as safety. As consistency. As being seen without performing. He didn’t complete me. He mirrored me: the healed, self-assured version I’d fought to become.

The rebirth

When I think back now, I don’t resent the woman who stayed too long. She was loyal, hopeful, and brave in her own way. She just didn’t know that love wasn’t supposed to cost her peace. That version of me walked through fire to remember her worth. And that’s what healing really is, not becoming someone new, but returning to the woman you were before you forgot your own light. Now, I’m in something different. Something steady. Something quiet. It doesn’t need to be performed, or posted, or proven. It exists in the way he reaches for my hand without needing an audience. In the way we laugh mid-conversation, not for the camera, but for us. It’s the kind of love that feels too sacred to explain. The kind that doesn’t demand to be seen by the world: because I finally see it, and that’s enough. This time, I don’t want to share every detail. Not out of secrecy, but reverence. Because after everything I’ve lived through, this peace feels like something worth keeping close: a small, quiet garden that only the two of us tend.

 And that’s enough.

Journaling prompts: love that feels sacred

1. What does safety in love feel like for me: in my body, not just my mind?
   Notice the difference between calm and excitement, between peace and adrenaline. Your body always tells the truth first.
   
   

2. Which parts of me become louder when I’m with someone healthy? Which parts finally relax?
   Pay attention to what expands. That’s where your soul feels at home.
   
   

3. How can I protect my peace without building walls?
   Explore what quiet boundaries and gentle privacy look like for you.
   
   

4. If my love didn’t need to be seen to be real, what would it look like?
   Maybe it’s laughter that no one records. Maybe it’s silence that feels full.
   
   

5. What am I learning about love now that chaos no longer defines it?
   Write the lessons your heart whispers when it’s no longer shouting for survival.