The line between love and self-abandonment is blurry—until it costs you everything.
I stayed longer than I should have.
Gave more than I had.
Carried people who never once tried to walk.
Because I thought loyalty meant never giving up.
No matter what.
I thought leaving made me selfish.
I thought staying made me strong.
I thought love was proved by pain tolerance.
And when it hurt?
I dug deeper.
When they broke me?
I gave them glue.
But loyalty without reciprocity
is just a slow suicide.
I was faithful to people
who were faithless with my heart.
I defended the ones who destroyed me.
I said, “They’re just hurting too,”
while bleeding out from the wounds they handed me.
And I called it healing.
Recovery.
Growth.
Forgiveness.
But it wasn’t.
It was fear.
It was codependence in a martyr costume.
I was loyal to dysfunction
because it was familiar.
Because choosing myself felt like betrayal.
Until I realized:
No one is worth saving if it means losing yourself.
Loyalty isn’t love.
It’s not recovery.
It’s not proof of healing.
Not if it costs you your peace.
Your voice.
Your f*cking sanity.
So I rewrote my vows.
This time, to me.
🧠 Emotional Takeaway:
Being loyal to the wrong people
is a trauma response—
not a virtue.
Healing means drawing the line
where you used to build bridges.
🪞 Reflection Box:
I used to call it commitment.
Now I call it what it was:
self-abandonment dressed up as devotion.
And I’m done handing out pieces of myself
just to prove I’m lovable.
🎤 I pledged myself to sinking ships,
With bloodied hands and bitten lips.
They loved me most when I would stay—
But healing meant I walked away.
No badge for pain. No prize for scars.
No sainthood found in broken hearts.
So here’s my line, and here I stand—
Loyalty is not my plan.
