What does it take to heal?

You know what’s hard about healing? I don’t want to lose my ability to love in the process. I love how big my heart is, and how much love I have to give. But I don’t want to give it to the wrong person again. I just don’t. 

So like, how do I not lose that? 

I know my heart is there, and I know I’m worthy of love. I’m so angry at my (ex)husband for ever making me question that I could just freely give my love and not get hurt. 

I’m upset that I don’t know how to trust myself after all of this. Looking at this now, I’m so frustrated with how naive I was. But also, I loved that naive ability to love about myself. 

What does it take to heal, become whole, and not lose the ability to love hard and with your whole heart? 

How do you ever trust that you can hand those keys to someone else again and they won’t shit all over it? 

Well that’s all about what? Your worth? No. Because I was worth the same I’ve always been… how do you trust that your worth to the person you choose to love isn’t going to destroy your heart? 

I asked a friend who’s been there done that and got the t-shirt when it comes to leaving someone with an addiction, and their answer was this: 

The answer my therapist gave is that when you’re healed, you’ll be able to trust someone like that again. 

Oh god. In order to heal. In order to do this right—I have to trust myself. 

I mean, I never lie to anyone but myself— so maybe I just gotta start telling myself the truth, then I’ll trust myself, and there we will be. 

Because maybe I knew my ex wasn’t the one the first time he spit all over me and called me terrible names. Why did I stay with him after that? 

Well, lots of reasons, but they all boiled down to me not knowing I deserved better, because if you just don’t tolerate less than you deserve the first time it happens, it will never happen again. 

So if you know your worth, then you trust your own self to not stand for that bull.

That’s probably about not self abandoning I’d assume. About knowing what you do and don’t want. About knowing what you expect out of a partner, and about not letting someone convince you that you should just take less because that’s all they’re willing to offer you. 

Idk if I have this. If I can truly understand how to trust myself to love again, but that same friend I asked earlier promised me that there’s no deadline, so, I guess I should give it a shot.