There’s a specific kind of grief that doesn’t come all at once — it trickles in quietly, then suddenly knocks the wind out of you.

I think I’m on the edge of collapse. The reality that I’ve never been loved consistently — not truly, not safely — has finally landed. Not just intellectually, but in my bones. And it’s gut-wrenching. It makes sense of the psychosis. Of the disconnection. Of the need to fabricate a story where maybe someone, somewhere, loved me for real.

But there’s no story that makes it untrue. I haven’t been.

And yesterday, that truth ran through my body so intensely, I ate three-quarters of a lemon cake just to feel something soft. To avoid something unbearable. Maybe even to avoid my son — because being near him stirs something in me that’s too raw. He is everything I wasn’t allowed to be. Joyful. Playful. Loved.

That contrast cuts deep.

I woke up at 4am today with my stress spiking all night. My body battery was at 29%. I’ve got nothing left — but I still want to show up for my son. Even as I question whether I’m self-sabotaging, whether the cake was an escape, whether part of me was just trying to get out of parenting.

But it’s not that I don’t want to be there. It’s that I want to be well enough to be there. Present. Real. Not a shell.

I haven’t asked his mum for help yet — it’s 4:30 in the morning as I write this, and I’m planning to wait until eight or nine before I ask. But I’m already holding space for whatever the answer is. I’ve barely asked in three years. I’ll show up tonight if I need to, but I’ll do it from survival mode — with softness. With honesty.

A Survival Plan

Today is not about thriving. It’s about preserving.

  • Eat something warm and grounding.
  • Lie down when I can, even for five minutes.
  • Let love be quiet tonight. Maybe a film. Maybe just parallel play.
  • Don’t perform. Just exist.

It’s strange how sometimes I’d sit at my computer and my energy would lift — like I was climbing. But today, with the full weight of this truth in me, I feel like I’m sinking. The sadness is too thick. And I understand now why I’ve struggled for so long.

Not being loved consistently doesn’t make me unlovable. It makes me tender. It makes me someone who had to build love from scratch — love for my son, love for myself, love for the world, even when I never saw the blueprint.

No one else was responsible for giving me that love. But it wasn’t my fault that they didn’t.

I’m still here.

Still writing.

Still trying.

And that, somehow, is enough.