What No One Tells You About Growing Up Unloved

It doesn’t always make you broken.

Sometimes it makes you dangerously functional.

You don’t collapse.

You don’t ask.

You don’t wait.

You become efficient at surviving rooms

that were never built for you.

You don’t crave love loudly.

You analyze it.

You measure its cost.

You keep exits in mind.

You don’t fear being alone—

you fear being dependent.

When someone offers softness,

you don’t melt.

You hesitate.

Because softness was never free.

You don’t believe in forever.

You believe in patterns.

You don’t dream of being saved.

You dream of being undisturbed.

And that’s the part no one talks about:

neglect doesn’t just wound—

it trains.

It teaches you how to carry silence,

how to replace comfort with competence,

how to confuse peace with distance.

Healing isn’t about becoming needier.

It’s about learning that connection

doesn’t always come with a bill.

That love doesn’t require

self-erasure as payment.

That you’re allowed to rest

without earning it.

This isn’t a tragedy.

It’s an unlearning.

And the bravest thing you’ll ever do

is let someone care

without preparing to leave.