Quick answer: From 14 to 26, I lived in a quiet kind of depression that followed me everywhere. I was looking for love in ways I did not fully understand at the time.
Last updated: March 29, 2026
There was a version of me that was always searching.
From the age of 14 to 26, I lived in a quiet kind of depression that followed me everywhere. It sat with me in my thoughts, in my choices, and in the way I saw myself.
I was looking for love in ways I did not fully understand at the time.
I gave my body away hoping it would fill something inside of me. I kept thinking maybe this time would feel different. Maybe this time I would feel chosen. Maybe this time I would feel enough.
But it never lasted.
There was a moment of euphoria, a temporary high, but it always faded. And when it did, I was left with the same emptiness I started with.
I did not realize it then, but I was chasing something I had never truly received.
Love.
Safety.
Validation.
And when you do not know what those things feel like, you will try to recreate them in any way you can.
Even if it hurts you.
When I was 14 and had my daughter, her father told me something that stayed with me longer than I ever realized. He told me that no one would ever love me. That no one would ever want me.
At that age, I did not have the tools to question that.
I absorbed it.
And somehow, without even realizing it, I spent years choosing people who reflected that same belief back to me.
People who treated me the way I had been taught to expect.
Because when something feels familiar, even if it is painful, it can feel like truth.
I was a child trying to raise a child.
Trying to survive my teenage years.
Trying to understand myself in my twenties while my mind was still developing and my heart was still healing.
I did not love myself.
I did not even know how to.
There were so many moments where I hated who I was.
Moments where I wished I could go back and change everything.
If I could return to 2005, I probably would try to rewrite my entire story.
But healing taught me something I did not expect.
You cannot rewrite the past.
But you can understand it.
And understanding changes everything.
It was not until I was 36, when I started therapy, that things began to make sense.
I was diagnosed with ADHD, depression, anxiety, and PTSD.
And for the first time, my life had context.
The way I thought.
The way I coped.
The way I searched for connection.
It was not because I was broken.
It was because I was trying to survive with tools I did not have yet.
That realization felt like a weight lifting off of me.
For the first time, I could look at my past with compassion instead of shame.
I stopped asking what is wrong with me.
And started asking what happened to me.
That question changed my life.
Because the truth is, I was not addicted to people.
I was addicted to the feeling of being wanted.
I was trying to prove something to myself that had been planted in me years ago.
That I was lovable.
But real love was never going to come from outside of me.
It was something I had to learn to give to myself.
And one day, something shifted.
It was not loud.
It was not dramatic.
It was quiet.
I got tired.
Tired of abandoning myself.
Tired of repeating the same cycles.
Tired of trying to earn something that should have been given freely.
And I made a decision.
I chose myself.
Not perfectly.
Not all at once.
But intentionally.
I started learning who I was.
What I needed.
What I deserved.
I started giving myself the love I had been searching for in everyone else.
And slowly, things began to change.
Not because my life became perfect.
But because I did.
I became someone who stayed.
And that changed everything.
If you see yourself in this story —
You are not broken.
You were trying to survive.
And you are still allowed to become someone new.
Softly.
Gently.
In your own time.
You can choose yourself too.
And when you do, that is where your life begins again.
🌙