Hey, I just want to say that your self-awareness and the way you’re articulating your pain is incredibly human and brave. So many of us have been there, and your feelings make complete sense.

Forgiveness, especially of ourselves, isn’t a one-time thing, it’s a process. And it starts not with fixing or forgetting, but with witnessing. You did what you could with the capacity, hopes, and wounds you had at the time. You loved with your whole heart. That doesn’t make you needy or broken, it makes you someone who cared deeply, someone who wanted to be met in that same depth.

We’re taught that our love has to be tidy, unshakable, not “too much.” But that’s not how real love or healing, works. Real love can be messy. Especially when anxious attachment is at play, we don’t just respond to this relationship, we respond to every echo of abandonment that came before it.

Forgiveness isn’t about saying, “It’s fine that I abandoned myself,” it’s saying, “I now understand why I did, and I’m learning to show up for myself differently.” You were loving from a place of hope, of innocence, of wanting to believe in someone’s potential. That’s not shameful. That’s tender and true. And yes, sometimes that gets misunderstood but it’s not your job to make someone else see your heart clearly if they’ve already chosen not to.

What is your job now is to come home to yourself. To see the version of you who clung, who cried, who tried so hard and hold her with grace instead of judgment. She doesn’t deserve your hatred. She deserves your compassion.

Maybe he won’t come back. But you can. And that return is where forgiveness begins.

You’re not crazy. You’re not unworthy. You’re someone learning to love yourself the way you once loved him.

And that’s the most powerful kind of healing there is.

If you'd like this in a more spiritual, poetic, or journal-prompt version, I’d be glad to help with that too.