I used to ask myself, “Why wasn’t I enough for him?”

Why wasn’t my love enough for him to stay? Why couldn’t I make someone choose me the way I chose them?

But something shifted in me this year.

I stopped asking why they didn’t love me and started asking why I didn’t love myself enough to walk away.

That one question changed everything.

When you’re an empath, you feel deeply. You carry the emotional weight of others, trying to fix, to heal, to hold on—even when it’s hurting you. But there’s something sacred about accepting your nature while also learning to protect it. That’s where true healing begins.

This year, I began looking inward—not to fix my situation, but to heal the little girl inside me.

The one who was taught love could leave at any moment.

The one who believed if she just loved harder, she’d be chosen.

The one who was never truly told, in words or actions, that she was already enough.

Tracing the Wound

I discovered I have an anxious attachment style—a constant craving for closeness, for reassurance, for someone to stay. But I also realized that I’ve always been drawn to men with avoidant tendencies—those who come close, then pull away. It’s a dynamic I know all too well.

To understand why, I had to go back to the beginning.

For the first 10 years of my life, my father worked overseas. He would visit once a year, stay for a month, then leave again. As a child, I didn’t understand that he was working to build a better life for us. All I felt was his absence. All I saw was him leaving—again and again. And although we eventually reunited, the emotional pattern was already carved into me.

He was never cruel. He loved us in the only way he knew how. But he had his own trauma. And because words weren’t his love language, I never fully heard the reassurance I needed as a little girl. I mistook the silence and the distance as something I had to earn back. So I tried. Quietly. Desperately. Without ever really knowing it.

And that’s where the fear of abandonment took root.

Repetition, Until You Learn

As I got older, the pattern followed me. Every time I sensed a man pulling away, I would panic. I couldn’t just let go. I would chase, overextend, overgive—because somewhere inside, I still believed love had to be held tightly or it would vanish.

It didn’t matter if he was hurting me.

What mattered was that he didn’t leave.

And that truth shattered me.

I started asking myself: Why do I keep choosing men who aren’t good for me?

Men who are emotionally unavailable, inconsistent, broken in their own ways.

Men who reflect the instability I experienced in childhood.

And then I saw it.

I wasn’t choosing them because I loved them.

I was choosing them because they felt familiar.

The Work Begins

Healing isn’t about blaming anyone. It’s about facing the truth.

And the truth is, if you don’t break the pattern, it will become your identity.

So I started the hard work.

That meant cutting off toxic habits.

That meant sitting with the discomfort when my body craved what was familiar—chaos, silence, push-and-pull.

That meant choosing peace over passion that hurt.

That meant showing up for myself like no one else ever had.

It was messy. Lonely. Beautiful. Transformative.

Loving Me First

I started telling myself, every single day:

You are enough.

You are not unlovable.

You are not too much or too little.

You are safe now.

I stopped begging to be seen, and instead looked in the mirror and decided I would never abandon myself again.

The love I was giving so freely to others, I began to give to me.

Rewriting the Story

My past shaped me, but it does not define me.

I now understand that healing means setting boundaries.

It means recognizing when a situation triggers your old wounds—and choosing differently.

It means respecting others, yes—but not at the cost of betraying yourself.

You can be soft and strong.

You can be empathetic and still have standards.

You can be loving and still walk away.

Because now, I know what I deserve.

I know what love should feel like.

And most importantly—I finally know how to give that love to myself.

To Anyone Reading This

You weren’t abandoned.

You were being shaped.

You were becoming.

The little girl in you deserves to feel safe.

And the woman you are now?

She deserves everything she’s been searching for—starting with her own heart.