Love

The more I gain in life, the more I fear losing it. I’ve always been like this—overthinking, overanalyzing, and preparing myself for worst-case scenarios. Of course, no one wants to experience pain, disappointment, or abandonment. But recently, I’ve been reflecting on just how deeply my rejection sensitivity runs. It’s intense—so much so that I sometimes construct imagined realities just to protect myself from emotional risk. And when I begin to focus on growth, healing, and pursuing the things I truly want in life… that fear returns, stronger than ever.

I’ve never thought of my abandonment anxiety or fear of commitment as abnormal. After all, don’t a lot of people carry emotional baggage? For the longest time, I believed my skepticism was part of my unique personality—my “charming” ability to anticipate disaster. It wasn’t until I entered therapy and received a depression diagnosis that I realized how much of this mindset was rooted in unresolved trauma and survival tactics.

Being a nihilist feels edgy in your teens. But as an adult, it starts to weigh on you. You look around and wonder why your mind defaults to darkness instead of hope. In the past few years, I’ve been shocked by how easily I can become withdrawn, angry, or disheartened—and how exhausting it is to manage these feelings every day, even with acceptance.

I know I’m rambling, but this is the truth: I live in constant fear of being abandoned. It’s a familiar nightmare, one that paints every joyful moment with the anxiety that it could disappear at any second. It’s not just fear—it’s a deep emotional vulnerability, a belief that I will always end up alone.

And yet… despite all that, I find myself longing for love again.

Not just platonic love or the self-love I’ve worked so hard to build, but romantic connection. The kind that makes your heart flutter. Somewhere inside me is still that hopeful teenage girl who believes in love stories. She's older, wiser, more guarded—but she’s still there. The thing is, I feel so lost. One moment, I’m hopeful. The next, I’m numb. Despite my past experiences, I still crave romance. But I keep retreating into the safety of my imagination because reality feels too risky.

Lately, I’ve started wondering: what if I created this “perfect partner” in my mind as a form of emotional self-protection? What if I gave them a face—maybe someone I admired or briefly met—just to keep myself from truly engaging in vulnerability? If I set the standards so high, if I designed a checklist no real person could ever fulfill, then I could stay safe. I could protect myself from ever being hurt again.

It’s not that I don’t want love. I do. But I want to feel safe more than I want to take a chance on someone who could potentially hurt me. I want to avoid the cycle of being open, only to be left broken again. So maybe, unconsciously, I created an impossible ideal—a love no real person could measure up to—so I wouldn't have to risk my heart.

And oddly enough, there’s a strange kind of freedom in this realization. The courage to ask myself the question: Am I making it harder for myself? Maybe the answer is yes.

But that doesn’t mean I’m broken or unworthy of love. It means I’m human.

I’m starting to realize I want something different this time. Maybe I don’t want to be the one who always initiates, who reaches out, who overextends herself just to feel seen. Maybe it’s okay to want to feel wanted. To hope that someone will take the lead. Maybe I can still be a strong, independent woman and dream of being swept off my feet.

And maybe—just maybe—that’s okay.

rejection sensitivity, fear of abandonment, emotional vulnerability, self-love journey, romantic connection, emotional healing, depression diagnosis, trauma recovery, adult relationships, mental health and love

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