When Love Feels Like Drowning
There’s a unique kind of sorrow that comes not from betrayal itself, but from the realization that you have betrayed yourself. That you silenced your own voice, dismissed your own pain, and minimized your own needs, just to preserve a connection that was already corroding you from the inside.
Psychologists call this cognitive dissonance—a state of internal conflict that arises when our actions do not align with our beliefs (Festinger, 1957). I believed in love, in commitment, in the idea that relationships required sacrifice. But when those sacrifices started to chip away at my self-worth, I was left in a disorienting limbo. To survive, I twisted reality: "Maybe it's not that bad," I thought. "Maybe I'm too sensitive." I wore masks, adapted, endured. This is what trauma-bonded love often feels like: confusing, addictive, and deeply lonely.
I remember one night, sitting on the kitchen floor after another silent dinner, hugging my knees like a child, trying to swallow the lump in my throat. My body knew before my mind would accept it—this was not love. This was abandonment dressed in routine.
Confronting the Mirror
The hardest part wasn’t leaving—it was facing myself in the aftermath. Psychologist Dr. Eleanor Greenberg refers to this as realization trauma. It's not always the act of abuse or neglect that hurts most, but the moment of clarity that follows. When you finally admit: This wasn’t love. This was survival.
This realization ruptures your sense of identity. Everything you thought was true begins to collapse. Your memories become tainted. Was I ever happy? Did they ever really love me? Who was I back then—and who am I now?
One evening, I opened an old photo album. There we were, smiling at a birthday party. My hand in his. To anyone else, we looked like a couple in love. But I remembered the fight we had just before that picture. The way I forced the smile. And I cried—not because of the loss, but because of how long I pretended.
The Shattering Moment: Mourning a Living Ghost
I was grieving not a person, but a fantasy. What Dr. Pauline Boss terms ambiguous loss (1999). The loss of something that is not clearly gone but is no longer present in the way we needed it to be. It is a confusing kind of mourning, one that is not validated by society because the person may still be alive, or the relationship may still technically exist.
It is the pain of loving someone who is emotionally absent. The heartbreak of knowing they were never truly who you hoped they were. I didn’t just lose a partner. I lost the dream. The future I had planned. The version of myself I believed was real when I was with them.
The Pain of Change Isn’t Clean
Change, contrary to the motivational posters, is not a sunrise walk along the beach. It is messy, dark, and often brutal. According to Dr. Susan Anderson, author of The Journey from Abandonment to Healing, we often resist change because it reactivates the Outer Child—the part of us that engages in self-sabotage based on childhood wounds.
The Outer Child fears rejection more than anything. It pulls us back toward what is familiar—even if it’s toxic. That’s why so many people return to unhealthy relationships: the brain interprets the familiar as safe, regardless of how much harm it causes.
The work of separating from this pattern is excruciating. It means sitting with urges to call them, to check their social media, to fantasize about reconciliation. It means breathing through the panic that rises when you realize you are truly alone.
There were nights I would hold my phone, trembling, just staring at their name. Hoping they would text first. Begging the universe for a sign. But the silence that answered me became my teacher. I was learning to be with myself.
Not Knowing What Comes Next
William Bridges, in his model of Transitions, explains that every transformation consists of three stages: the Ending, the Neutral Zone, and the New Beginning. What most people misunderstand is how disorienting the Neutral Zone is. It’s a place of identity limbo. Your old self no longer fits, but your new self hasn’t fully emerged.
In this space, you question everything. You wonder if you’ll ever trust again. If you’ll ever feel whole. You may even miss the person who hurt you, because pain shared with another still felt like connection. This ambiguity is where the real work of healing happens—not in clarity, but in the murky unknown.
I would journal daily, trying to find clarity. But most days, all I wrote was, "I don’t know." I didn’t know who I was, what I wanted, or if I’d ever love again. That space—where everything was suspended—was terrifying.
The Loneliness of Healing
Healing is rarely a dramatic rebirth. More often, it’s slow, inconsistent, and quiet. Dr. Helen Fisher’s research on romantic attachment shows that breakups activate the same neural pathways as drug withdrawal (Fisher et al., 2006). This explains the obsession, the rumination, the emotional highs and crashes.
We become chemically addicted to the emotional rollercoaster. This is especially true in toxic relationships, where intermittent reinforcement—moments of kindness amidst the chaos—keeps us hooked. It takes time and effort to detox from this cycle. There are no shortcuts.
Sometimes you sit in silence and feel the ache in your chest like a scream you can’t voice. This too is part of healing.
Tiny Sparks of Light
As I rebuilt my life from fragments, I began to understand the power of self-compassion. Kristin Neff, a pioneer in this field, teaches that we must treat ourselves with the same kindness we offer to others. Not once we are "better," but especially while we are broken.
Self-compassion isn’t indulgent. It’s a revolutionary act of reclaiming your worth. It’s saying: I matter, even if I’m a mess. I am lovable, even if I’ve made mistakes. I am healing, even if today, I am only surviving.
In practicing this, I slowly rewired how I treated myself. I learned to validate my own pain. To soothe my own triggers. To set boundaries not just with others, but with my inner critic.
I started to speak to myself as I would to a friend. Gentle. Patient. Forgiving. And for the first time in years, I began to feel safe within my own skin.
Redefining Love and Self
In childhood, many of us learn love through conditions: behave a certain way, achieve certain things, and only then are we worthy. This sets the stage for seeking validation through sacrifice. But as Dr. Margaret Paul describes through her Inner Bonding framework, true healing comes from learning to re-parent ourselves. To give the inner child the unconditional love we always needed.
Letting go, then, becomes a form of inner loyalty. It’s saying: I will not abandon you again—not for anyone. Even if it means loneliness, even if it means grief. I will stay with you.
This is not the kind of love we are taught to seek. But it’s the only kind that saves us.
Conclusion: Facing the Pain Was the Beginning
Change isn’t one decision. It’s thousands of tiny ones: the decision to not text them. The decision to cry instead of numb. The decision to choose peace over chaos.
I thought the pain would destroy me. But in time, I saw the truth: it was revealing me. Stripping away the illusions, the conditioning, the co-dependence. And underneath it all, I found something beautiful: me.
Not perfect. But real. Whole. Enough.
Psychological References
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Festinger, L. (1957). A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance.
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Boss, P. (1999). Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live with Unresolved Grief.
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Greenberg, E. (2010). Borderline, Narcissistic, and Schizoid Adaptations: The Pursuit of Love, Admiration, and Safety.
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Anderson, S. (2000). The Journey from Abandonment to Healing.
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Bridges, W. (1991). Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change.
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Fisher, H., Aron, A., & Brown, L.L. (2006). Romantic love: An fMRI study of a neural mechanism for mate choice. Journal of Comparative Neurology.
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Neff, K. (2011). Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself.
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Paul, M. (2000). Inner Bonding: Becoming a Loving Adult to Your Inner Child.
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