For much of my life, I’ve found myself accepting scraps from people.
The unreliable friend who messages but never follows through. The one who makes me feel like I’m asking too much simply by showing up with sincerity. The ones who never really had the capacity to meet me, but I hung around anyway.

On the surface, these scraps look like “connection.” But if I’m honest, they’re just echoes of what I grew up with.

The Echo of My Parents

I grew up watching my mother and father in a dynamic that never resembled love. She criticized him constantly to feel superior, and he lived under the weight of threat and control. As a child, I couldn’t accept that there was no love between them—it would have left me too unsafe, too unprotected. So I chose to believe they loved each other. I chose to believe I could fix it. That illusion gave me a sense of control, but the reality was I was never emotionally or physically safe.

Those beliefs never really vanished. They lived on in me through the way I clung to unreliable people, hoping for love in places where it could never grow.

The Fear of Letting Go

When I think about letting go of these old connections, the child in me panics: “If I let go, I’ll be completely alone. What if I never find real connection again?”

That fear is real. It’s the same fear that once told me, “If I let go of my parents, I won’t survive.”

But another part of me knows the truth: I’m not actually losing anything when I let go. I’m simply releasing the illusion that scraps equal nourishment.

Letting go leaves me with both loneliness and possibility—the chance to build connections that are safe, mutual, and alive.

A Glimpse of the Real Thing

Recently, in college, I had one of the most healing moments I’ve known in years.
We were in a serious roleplay about suicide, yet I couldn’t help but burst into laughter with the guy opposite me. Not out of disrespect—but out of a sense of safety I didn’t expect to feel.

It wasn’t just him, though he and I share a dark, playful sense of humour that made the moment so natural. It was the whole group. For the first time in a long time, I felt completely safe to be myself in a circle of people.

With him, there was no alcohol, no distraction, no activity needed. Just two people, shaped by very different lives, recognizing the same scars in each other and finding lightness in it. It was as if the best parts of me were echoed back.

That laughter was my body saying: “Here, you’re safe. Here, you’re accepted.”

Reparenting Myself

The boy in me still fears that letting go means being left with nothing. He wants to hold on, because holding on feels safer than the unknown.

But I can tell him now:

  • It’s better to be alone with the possibility of good connection, than to be surrounded by people who will never give you what you need.
  • Real connection doesn’t come from scraps—it comes from safety, presence, and mutual recognition.
  • You are worthy of more than politeness and obligation.

I don’t need to force anything anymore. I don’t need to keep people around just because they once filled the role of “someone.”

Letting go is not pushing people away. It’s opening space for the connections that are already beginning to grow.

Closing Thought

The laughter at college reminded me: love doesn’t come through fixing, controlling, or clinging. It comes through being seen, and being safe enough to laugh, even in the heavy moments.

That’s the life I want to build now—one where I don’t accept scraps, because I finally know what it feels like to taste something real.