I Wasn’t Unlovable — I Just Believed I Was

It’s strange to look back now and realize how much of my pain wasn’t caused by the breakup itself — but by the story I already believed about myself.

If I hadn’t believed I was unlovable…
If I hadn’t internalized that core belief long before the relationship even began…
Then I probably wouldn’t have taken the breakup so hard.
I wouldn’t have doubted the love we had.
I wouldn’t have listened so closely to my mother’s voice, telling me she never really cared for me, that she used me, that I was just a paycheck.

But the truth is — those weren’t new wounds.
They were old ones being reopened.

And because I didn’t yet know how to question them, I let them in. I let them shape how I saw myself, how I grieved, how I moved through the world.

Even things like getting into jiu-jitsu — that came from pain. From a need to feel strong. To not be broken. To prove I could protect myself when no one else had.
It wasn’t a bad decision. It probably even helped me. But it was driven by something deeper: the belief that I wasn’t safe, and I wasn’t enough.

That belief came from one place.

My mother.

And it’s taken me years to admit this — not just intellectually, but in my body —
that she is the most toxic force I’ve known.

She didn’t just harm me. She rewrote my narrative to make me believe it was my fault.
She taught me to doubt love.
To assume abandonment.
To trust shame more than connection.

If I had grown up in a loving, emotionally safe environment, I would have grieved my breakup — but I wouldn’t have crumbled under the weight of it. I wouldn’t have believed I was inherently unlovable. I wouldn’t have handed my heartbreak to the person who fed it — and let her poison shape what might’ve been repairable.

But I did.
And that’s part of my story too.

Not because I failed — but because I was trying to survive with the tools I had.

And now? Now I see it.
I’m not unlovable. I never was.

I just believed I was — because the person who should have loved me most taught me that lie.

But I don’t believe her anymore.

And that changes everything.