The Journal

I Left,

But This Is What It Actually Took.

You've heard the version where I left. The part where I chose my children. Where I chose to live.

But what you haven't heard is what it actually took to get there.

Because leaving didn't just take strength, it nearly took my life.

The Part No One Sees

I wasn't just walking away from a relationship.

I was walking away from everything I had been conditioned to believe was normal. The environments I grew up in. The way love was shown. The way conflict was handled. The way emotions were either carried or silenced.

All of it shaped me long before I even realized it.

When something is all you've ever known, you don't question it.
You adapt to it.

You learn to sit in discomfort and call it strength. You learn to stay when things don't feel right because leaving was never something you were taught.

When Staying Feels Like the Only Option

So when I found myself in a relationship that was slowly breaking me, I didn't see it as something to walk away from.

I saw it as something to work through. Something to fix. Something I needed to endure.

Because that's what I thought love looked like.

And over time, that kind of environment doesn't just affect your relationship, it changes how you see yourself.

You start to feel like you're not enough.
Like you're the problem.
Like if you could do more, be better, try harder… things would change.

And when nothing changes, you don't always blame the situation. You start blaming yourself.

The Slow Breaking

By the time everything began to unravel, I was already exhausted in ways I didn't even have the words for.

It wasn't always loud or obvious. Sometimes it was quiet. Constant. Like something sitting on your chest that never fully lifts.

I had learned how to function inside that. How to get through the day. How to hold everything together on the outside… while everything inside me felt like it was slowly falling apart.

The Complicated Truth

And somewhere in the middle of that… I connected with someone else.

It wasn't planned.
It wasn't simple.
And it definitely wasn't something I felt proud of at the time.

But it happened.

For the first time in a long time, I felt seen. I felt understood in a way I hadn't felt before. And when you've been emotionally empty for so long… that kind of connection feels like everything.

But it came with its own truth that I couldn't ignore. He wasn't available. The timing didn't make sense. And deep down, I knew it wasn't something that could exist in the way I needed it to.

But the feelings were real. And trying to hold onto something that feels so right… while knowing it's so wrong… creates a kind of mental battle that's hard to explain unless you've lived it.

When Everything Collides

I was already trying to survive one situation. Now I was emotionally tied to another.

One was breaking me.
The other felt like it was saving me.

But it also came with its own weight, its own reality I couldn't escape. And when you're already fragile, already overwhelmed… that kind of emotional conflict doesn't ground you. It unravels you even more.

Survival Mode

I had no money.
I was pregnant.
I was overwhelmed.
And mentally… I was not okay.

My thoughts weren't quiet, they were constant. I questioned everything. I doubted myself. I didn't trust my own decisions… or even my own reality anymore.

Decisions don't come from clarity in those moments. They come from survival.

And the shame that came with it all… that's something people don't talk about enough. Because from the outside, it's easy to judge. It's easy to say what someone should do. But when you're the one living it, when you're the one lying awake at night trying to make sense of your own life, you realize something very quickly.

Grieving the Life You Thought You'd Have

There was also grief in this. A deep kind of grief.

For the life I thought I was building.
For the version of love I believed I would have.
For the idea that things would eventually fall into place.

Letting go of that wasn't just letting go of people. It was letting go of a vision. A hope. A future I had believed in.

The Cycle

And underneath all of it, was something even harder to face.

The realisation that I was repeating a cycle. A cycle built from everything I had grown up around. Everything I had learned to accept. Everything I thought I had to live because it was all I knew.

For a long time, I believed that was just life. That is what it looked like.

The Moment Everything Shifted

But somewhere in the middle of all of that, through the exhaustion, the confusion, the shame, and the emotional chaos, there was a quiet part of me that knew.

This wasn't it.
That I couldn't keep living like that.
That my children deserved more.
And so, did I.

The Truth About Leaving

I didn't leave because everything made sense. I didn't leave because I felt strong.

I left because staying was slowly destroying me, I knew I deserved better and so do you.