There was a time in my life when I thought love meant staying. Staying through the chaos, the addiction, the broken promises, and the emotional abuse. I thought being loyal meant holding someone together while I was quietly falling apart. I didn’t realize that what I was calling love was slowly costing me my health, my peace, and ultimately myself.
Being with someone battling substance abuse doesn’t just affect themit consumes you. You become the fixer, the protector, the caretaker. You monitor their moods, manage their crises, and carry the emotional weight they refuse to face. Somewhere along the way, your needs stop mattering. Your joy becomes secondary. Your life starts revolving around survival instead of fulfillment.
And the truth I had to face the hard truth is that kind of chronic stress doesn’t just hurt emotionally. It shows up physically.
I truly believe the stress I endured in my marriage being with an addict and a verbal abuser played a significant role in my cancer diagnosis. When your body is constantly in a state of fight or flight, when your nervous system never gets a chance to rest, when your heart is always bracing for the next blow… it takes a toll. Stress will kill you faster than a bullet, and I couldn’t see it while I was in the thick of it.
But I see it now.
Sometimes I’ll come across an image of him and his new partner, and what stands out isn’t jealousy or anger it’s recognition. She looks drained. Dull. Lifeless. The same way I once looked. The same way he looks. And it hits me deeply not because of them, but because I remember what that felt like. That slow erosion of your spirit.
Some people are what I now understand as energy vampires. They don’t thrive on their own they survive by feeding off others. They can’t be alone. They can’t pour into themselves. Their sense of stability, identity, and even peace depends on having someone else to drain. And if you’re not aware, if you haven’t healed, if you don’t know your worth you can easily become their source.
But this isn’t about them.
This is about you.
This is about recognizing the patterns. The red flags. The emotional exhaustion that you’ve been calling “love.” This is about healing the parts of you that made you believe you had to earn love by sacrificing yourself. This is about understanding that you are not responsible for saving anyone at the expense of your own well-being.
Everyone is not your project.
Love does not require you to lose yourself.
And real love, healthy love will never drain you to the point where you no longer recognize who you are.
Healing requires honesty. It requires choosing yourself, even when it feels uncomfortable… even when it feels unfamiliar. It requires learning how to sit with yourself, love yourself, and rebuild the parts of you that were neglected.
Because when you truly love yourself, your standards change. Your tolerance changes. Your energy shifts. You stop entertaining what drains you and start protecting what fuels you.
Avoid these types of energies like your life depends on it because it does.
This is your reminder that you deserve peace.
You deserve health.
You deserve joy.
You deserve a love that pours into you, not one that empties you.
Love yourself to a better life.
Xo,
Gail
