When the people teaching you love are also the people teaching you fear, the word starts to lose its meaning. You stop trusting what people say and start watching what they do. Because “I love you” does not get to overrule everything that happens after it.

Maybe the harder question for all of us is this: What does being loved by me actually feel like?

“What does it mean to call someone good when their choices caused profound harm? A personal essay about abandonment, mental illness, moral goodness, and the closure that never comes.”