Take Care

"Most adult children of toxic parents grow up feeling tremendous confusion about what love means and how it’s supposed to feel. Their parents did extremely unloving things to them in the name of love. They came to understand love as something chaotic, dramatic, confusing, and often painful—something they had to give up their own dreams and desires for. Obviously, that’s not what love is all about. Loving behavior doesn’t grind you down, keep you off balance, or create feelings of self-hatred. Love doesn’t hurt, it feels good. Loving behavior nourishes your emotional well-being. When someone is being loving to you, you feel accepted, cared for, valued, and respected. Genuine love creates feelings of warmth, pleasure, safety, stability, and inner peace." — Susan Forward, Toxic Parents, p381

I found someone who became an escape valve for me from this kind of toxic behavior, but I was too broken to fully escape. I am left wondering if I will ever find a way to not be so broken. Will I ever not be toxic to myself and by extension toxic to anyone I love? If it is possible, and I both hope and believe that is, then why can't it be with her? What if I am able to fix myself? Heal myself? What if I find that I am no longer as broken as I once was and I still just want to be with her. Will it even matter? Should it? Or will that just be a new brokenness to conquer? I sure don't want it to be, but I guess I have no control over anything but how I take care of myself.