I had never fallen in love, but when I did, it ruined me — A Lady Shares

I used to pride myself on being immune to love. Not cold—just… careful. While my friends cried over heartbreaks and wrote letters they’d never send, I stayed grounded. I was the listener, the voice of reason, the one who always said, “Love is a beautiful illusion that often turns into a painful truth.”

For 29 years, I walked this earth with an intact heart. Not untouched, but unclaimed. And then, one Tuesday morning, he walked into the cyber cafe where I worked.

He wasn’t extraordinary—at least, not to anyone else. But to me? He was the calmest. He requested for some photocopies and I made them and gave him .He returned the next day. And the next. Before I realized it, we were spending hours talking about art, silence, scars. He said he saw something in me that no one else had bothered to find and I really believed him.

I didn’t fall in love but I plunged. I abandoned every wall I had built, every lesson I had ever whispered to myself. I stopped recognizing the woman in the mirror. She smiled more, sure—but she was trembling inside.

In six months, he asked me

out and I said yes before he finished the sentence. What followed was the slow dismantling of my sanity.

He didn’t hit me. But he always lied. Disappeared for days. Turned cold. Gaslighted me when I asked questions. He would usually say “You’re imagining things.” “You’re too sensitive.” “You’re making a big deal out of nothing.”

I started questioning my reality.So I stopped sleeping. I kept hearing echoes of his voice even when he wasn’t around. My friends couldn’t reach me anymore and neither could I.

One day, I woke up on the bathroom floor, not sure how I got there. My sister found me sobbing, holding his old T-shirt like it was oxygen. That’s the day she drove me to the hospital.

I spent three weeks in a mental health facility. Diagnosed with severe emotional trauma and depression. I had to relearn how to trust my mind. To sit with myself without falling apart.

I’m still healing. There are days I miss him. There are nights I ache for the version of him I thought was real. But more than that, I’m learning to miss the woman I used to be before love unraveled her.

To any woman reading this—don’t lose yourself trying to keep someone else. Love shouldn’t cost your mind. If it does, it’s not love—it’s a slow, dangerous undoing.

Have you ever mistaken pain for passion? How did you find your way back?