When Love Is Not Enough to Mend a Broken Soul

A post of love, mental illness, self-sabotage — and the quiet, aching hope that maybe kindness and accountability can still lead us to better days.

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Featured Image 2025 © Lunareth

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🏷️ Tags and Trigger Warning: Sensitive Topics – please read with care. This post discusses trauma, PTSD, self-harm, grief and emotional abuse.

🕯️ Disclaimer

The story below reflects my personal thoughts, emotions and experiences. It is not meant to place blame or assign judgment, but to offer understanding, invite reflection and remind others that they are not alone. My intention is never to hurt or accuse, only to shed light on what we often carry, the mistakes we make while trying to live and the possibility that healing begins with honesty.

Everything I share here is personal, never professional advice. These are fragments of my journey, offered with three hopes:

1. That someone reading might feel a little less alone — and a little more understood, even comforted.
2. That someone reading might discover a new idea, or at least a spark of clarity, bringing them one step closer to a “better” tomorrow, one day at a time.
3. That even someone in a completely different situation might find the words speaking to them, maybe as inspiration for understanding or at least some food for thought.

Thank you for reading with compassion.

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… Love …

I once believed love could fix anything.

That if someone saw me – truly saw me – then maybe I wouldn’t feel so fractured inside.
That the right person could quiet the chaos in my head, stitch together the torn edges of my heart, and finally make me feel safe.

And for a while… I thought I had found that person.

We met in the aftermath of my suicide attempt back before 2010.
He was the first person who didn’t flinch when I was honest about the mess I carried inside.

The dark, destructive thoughts.
The deep depression phases.
The flaring physical self-harm.
The draining emotional rollercoasters.

He didn’t run.
He didn’t label me broken.
He just… stayed.
He made me laugh.
He made me feel seen.
And more than anything… he made me feel like maybe, just maybe, I was safe enough to exhale.
In his arms were one of the few moments in my life I felt truly at peace.

I didn’t love him because he saved me.
I loved him because with him …
I felt less like a burden.
Less like a monster.
More like a human.
More… normal.

But here’s the truth I found for myself now, that I didn’t know how to face back then:

Love, by itself, is not enough to mend a soul still breaking apart.

I warned him.
I told him I was unstable.
That I didn’t know how to not hurt people when fear swallowed me whole.
And he told me he trusted me.
He believed in the version of me he saw.
The version I wanted so badly to become.
He said he knew me.
He said I could never hurt him.

But I couldn’t hold it together.
Not all the time.
And eventually… I did hurt him.
Not out of hate.
Not even out of anger.
Certainly not out of malice.
But out of fear and pain.
Out of overwhelm.
Out of that unbearable feeling that no matter how much I tried, I would never be enough.

It happened after the moment I thought I was doing something good.

I introduced him to someone.
Someone I thought could bring him the joy I couldn’t.
She was smart, grounded, full of energy and possibility—everything I thought I wasn’t.
She was his twin flame, his soul mirror.

I was at least right about that part.

And when I saw them together, something deep in me hoped they could be happy.
Because I loved him.
And I wanted him to be loved.
For him to find the peace and joy he gave me.

But… the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I thought I was helping.
Instead, I opened the door to my own undoing.

She was furious.
And she had every right to be.
She saw what I had done—how I had lashed out against him when all he wanted was to help.
She saw the damage I couldn’t undo.

And she said things I can’t unhear:

“You’re a heartless monster.”
“A delusional sociopath.”
“You don’t even know what love is.”

And sometimes, when the guilt swells and the nights get quiet…
I still believe her.

Because I saw his joy with her.
I saw a light in his eyes I never put there.

And it wasn’t the loss of him that broke me—
Not even the future I never would’ve had.

It was the certainty that I would never be someone who could bring that light to anyone.

Not him.
Not anyone.

I had started to relax.
Dared to believe I might be able to be okay.
Because until that moment, there was one person I hadn’t hurt.
One soul I hadn’t broken.

Until I almost did.

The one person who had stood by me for over a decade.
The only thing he ever did was be there.

Maybe I didn’t love him the way he needed.
Maybe I clung to him because he made me feel safe, not whole.
Maybe what I felt wasn’t perfect. Or healthy. Or enough.

But I also think… it was real.
Messy. Frightened.
Cracked and clawing toward light.
It was all I had.
All I had to give.

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2025 © ComFORTYart

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I can’t forgive myself yet.

This happend October/November 2021.
It might sound long ago, but for my heart it wasn’t.
I can’t forgive myself to this day and I’m still not sure I should.

For hurting someone who tried to help.
For letting him get close when I knew how dangerous my pain could be.
For thinking I could do something selfless and instead watching it all collapse.

But I will spend the rest of my life trying to do better.
Be better.

Even if that means staying alone.
Even if that means accepting that not everyone gets a second chance.

Because maybe love isn’t enough to mend a broken soul.

But maybe… one day…
Kindness can be.
Accountability can be.

And maybe, if I keep walking…
I’ll learn how to love without destruction.
How to hold others without shattering myself.
How to forgive the girl I was.

And maybe…
Inside of me is not a true monster.
Just a frightened, hurt woman trying to give love
before she ever truly learned how to receive or show it.

Until then… to spare everyone the grief…
the best I can do is keep to myself.
Keep failing forward.
And hope that “one day” will arrive in this lifetime.

Maybe broken doesn’t mean worthless.
Maybe it just means unfinished.