I could choose to honor the deeper vows—the
ones I had made to myself long ago. The ones
that whispered: you are worthy of peace. You are
worthy of a life where you don’t have to live in
fear. You are allowed to be whole.
I could choose my sanity, my spirit, my dreams,
and my peace. I could walk away from a marriage
that had already been broken by his choices. I
could rewrite the story before it wrote itself into
tragedy.
This decision wasn’t born of anger. It was born of
clarity. I was no longer willing to let my future be
dictated by fear, by duty, or by the illusion that
love means suffering. I wanted a future crafted
by choice, not circumstance—a future led by my
voice, my values, and my vision for peace.
The hardest part of being the loved one of an
addict is the invisible grief. The grief of losing
someone who’s still alive. The grief of showing up
for a relationship that never shows up for you.
The guilt that whispers, “If I leave, am I
abandoning them?” even as you feel yourself
disappearing.
There are traumas we never talk about. The late-
night panic attacks. The constant hypervigilance.
The small betrayals that add up—the lies, the
hiding, the manipulation. You start to question
your own reality. You doubt your intuition. You
become an expert in minimizing your own needs.
And somehow, through all of that, the world still
expects you to be the strong one.
But strength isn’t staying in the fire until you
burn out. Strength is knowing when to walk away.
The Generational Truth
She sacrificed herself for the idea that love
meant loyalty at all costs. But I saw the cost.
The emotional toll of watching her children spiral
left her spirit weary and her identity threadbare.
There were no tools for navigating the pain. No
language for emotional boundaries. No space to
say, “This is too much.”
The next generation mirrored the same pattern.
My elders wore codependency like armor,
thinking it would protect them. But it only buried
their true selves deeper. I saw the loss of identity
in all three of my grandmother’s children. Their
personalities shaped not by dreams or passions,
but by coping with trauma they never asked for.
Endurance was glorified. But no one ever asked,
“What’s the cost of that kind of love?”
I chose differently. I had to.
Choosing myself wasn’t just about me—it was
about breaking a generational chain. It was about
modeling a new legacy where love doesn’t mean
losing yourself. Where support doesn’t require
self-sacrifice. Where healing is allowed to be
loud, bold, and unapologetic.
I wasn’t just facing my own choices—I was
confronting generations of conditioning.
In my family, I watched women endure. My
grandmother bore the weight of addiction in her
children with quiet fortitude. “Family comes
first,” they said. “Whatever it takes.”
The Courage to Choose
Yourself
For many of us—especially women—putting
ourselves first feels taboo. We’re taught to be
selfless, to sacrifice, to carry others even when
we’re barely standing. But here’s the truth that
often gets buried beneath the “good girl”
conditioning:
Choosing yourself is not selfish. It’s sacred.
I had to reframe what love looked like. It wasn’t
about martyrdom or endurance. It wasn’t about
being the one who stayed and “fixed” everything.
It was about presence, peace, and alignment. And
I couldn’t have any of those if I kept abandoning
myself to soothe someone else’s wounds.
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