Who Hurt Me? Everybody I Ever Trusted.

“Who hurt you?”

That question always makes me laugh a little.

Not because it’s funny.

Because I genuinely don’t know where the hell I’m supposed to start.

Who hurt me?

Everybody I’ve ever known.

Maybe not intentionally.

Maybe not in the same way.

Maybe some of them would swear they loved me.

Maybe some of them actually did.

But love doesn’t erase damage.

And good intentions don’t magically undo the shit people leave behind.

So when someone asks me why I’m guarded, why I overthink, why I need reassurance, why I pull away, why I expect people to leave, why I read too deeply into changes in tone or silence or distance…

I wish I could give them one clean answer.

One villain.

One heartbreak.

One moment that explains all of it.

But there isn’t one.

It was death by a thousand fucking cuts.

It was being disappointed by people I trusted.

It was being abandoned by people who promised they wouldn’t leave.

It was being lied to by people who looked me directly in the eyes.

It was being made to feel like I was too much, then not enough, sometimes by the same damn person.

It was learning that “I love you” doesn’t always mean “I’m going to treat you with love.”

That was a hard lesson.

Because I used to believe words.

God, I used to believe them.

I believed promises.

I believed apologies.

I believed “I’m different.”

I believed “I’d never do that to you.”

I believed “You can trust me.”

And somewhere along the way, those words stopped feeling comforting and started sounding like warning signs.

Because I learned that people can say beautiful things while doing incredibly ugly ones.

I learned that someone can hold you while actively breaking you.

I learned that some people only love the version of you that is convenient for them.

The quiet version.

The forgiving version.

The version who doesn’t ask questions.

The version who doesn’t demand accountability.

The version who keeps swallowing hurt so everyone else can stay comfortable.

I’m not that version anymore.

And people really fucking hate when the person they hurt finally grows boundaries.

They’ll tell you that you changed.

They’ll say you’re cold.

Distant.

Difficult.

Bitter.

But nobody talks about how many times someone has to be hurt before softness starts feeling dangerous.

Nobody talks about how exhausting it is to constantly second-guess kindness.

To wonder what someone wants from you.

To question whether affection is genuine.

To brace for abandonment while somebody is still holding your hand.

That kind of damage changes the way you move through the world.

You stop assuming people mean well.

You start noticing everything.

A slower reply.

A different tone.

A sudden lack of affection.

A change in routine.

A sentence that feels slightly off.

And while everybody else says, “You’re overthinking,” your nervous system is screaming, “We’ve seen this before.”

That’s the part people don’t understand.

Sometimes you’re not reacting to this person.

You’re reacting to every person who came before them.

Every betrayal.

Every broken promise.

Every goodbye you didn’t see coming.

Every time someone made you feel safe and then used that safety against you.

And yes, I know that isn’t fair to the people who didn’t cause the damage.

I know.

That’s why I’m trying.

I’m trying to stop making new people pay emotional debts they never created.

I’m trying to believe actions when they’re consistent.

I’m trying to understand that not everybody leaves.

Not everybody lies.

Not everybody loves conditionally.

But healing gets romanticized way too much.

People make it sound like one day you wake up and suddenly you’re healed.

No.

Sometimes healing is ugly.

It’s realizing you’ve become suspicious of things you once prayed for.

It’s noticing you’re pushing someone away because being loved feels more terrifying than being alone.

It’s wanting reassurance and then hating yourself for needing it.

It’s being desperate for closeness and terrified of it at the exact same time.

It’s learning that your survival skills are no longer serving you.

And having to unlearn them anyway.

So yes.

Who hurt me?

Everybody I’ve ever known.

But here’s the part I’m finally beginning to understand:

They don’t get to keep me.

They don’t get to own every future relationship.

They don’t get to decide what love looks like for me forever.

They don’t get to turn my heart into a crime scene and then keep controlling what happens there.

I may still flinch.

I may still overthink.

I may still need reassurance sometimes.

I may still have days where the old wounds feel brand fucking new.

But I’m learning.

I’m learning that being guarded kept me alive, but it doesn’t have to keep me lonely.

I’m learning that boundaries are not cruelty.

That asking for consistency is not asking for too much.

That walking away from people who repeatedly hurt me is not failure.

And maybe the biggest thing I’m learning is this:

I am not difficult to love because other people taught me to fear it.

I was just hurt by people I never thought I’d have to heal from.

And I’m still here.

A little scarred.

A little suspicious.

A little harder to get close to.

But still capable of loving deeply.

Maybe even more deeply than before.

So who hurt me?

Everybody.

But I’m finally learning not everybody gets to keep doing it.

— The Girl Behind the Chaos