I believed a lie.
I didn’t know it was a lie at the time.
It felt like wisdom.
Like protection.
Like the only way I could move through life without constantly getting hurt.
The lie sounded like this;
“If you reject others before they decide to reject you, it won’t hurt as much.”
So, I lived that way…
Guarded.
Distant.
With walls carefully built and then reinforced too.
I learned how to emotionally detach before others had the chance to disappoint me.
I’d pull away quietly, sometimes subtly, sometimes not subtle at all.
I’d use being “too busy” as a shield, creating distance to make sure they wouldn’t be the one to leave first.
It was never out of malice.
It was always, out of fear.
Fear of abandonment.
Fear of being “too much” or somehow still “not enough.”
Fear of repeating old wounds, old endings, old heartbreaks.
Fear of being hurt again.
And for a while, I told myself it was working.
After all, I was protecting my heart… right?
But here’s the truth I learned the hard way:
self-protection doesn’t selectively numb pain.
Eventually, it became clear,
rejecting people first didn’t save me from pain.
It just gave me a different kind of pain.
A lonely one.
An empty one.
A self-inflicted ache.
It cost me the possibility of healing.
The beauty of walking in relationships marked by hope, peace and trust.
I realised I was hurting myself before anyone else even had the chance to…
just so I could stay in control of when the hurt came.
And I had to ask myself something;
What if I allowed people to potentially hurt me again…
and what if they didn’t?
Because yes, people will disappoint us.
Some will leave.
Some won’t know how to love.
And others will mishandle our hearts entirely.
But some people will stay.
Some will show up.
Some will choose us… and keep choosing us.
And I don’t want to miss the beauty of this love
because I’m too busy running from all the negative “what ifs.”
So, no… rejecting others first doesn’t make the pain disappear.
It distorts it.
Deepens it.
Complicates it.
And now here I am, still learning to fight the instinct to run,
knowing that love is never found by hiding.
Many Blessings, Grace. Xx
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