Angel Green
February 16, 2026
Like the rest of the world I sometimes post about love and heartbreak. I think most people assume I’m talking about romance. And sometimes I am, but what I’m really writing about is attachment. The kind that makes you feel like you’re unraveling when someone leaves. The kind that turns love into desperation, and loss into self hatred.
When people leave, I don’t just feel sad. I feel betrayed. I feel embarrassed for believing them. I get angry at myself for being too much, too needy, too hopeful.
Growing up with constant I love you / I hate you cycles messes with your brain. It teaches you that love is unstable. Conditional. Temporary. Little me learned to look for that missing love in other people believing that if I could just be enough, someone would finally stay.
Let me make it really clear that I am not saying I am a victim, I am very mean sometimes and when my abandonment issues kick in I surprise myself with how much I can hurt others.
You know how people are always like “ugh! I hate my in-laws!" yeah well that didn't used to be my case. If I’m being honest, there was a time I loved them more than I loved my husband. Five years ago, if you had asked me to choose between him or his parents, I would have chosen them without hesitation.
They made me feel chosen, claimed, like I finally belonged to a family.
And when that fell apart, I turned the pain inward.
I wish I could be mad at them and hate them, sometimes I even do feel like I hate them, then my empathetic self comes out. Putting so much care and patience into someone who wasn’t “getting better” could be a frustrating thing, especially when it's a moody, emotional, grown woman who isn't even your blood… that can be heavy on someone, and as much as it hurts I am learning to accept that.
Back in early 2024, things were spiraling again with my sister, and my depression followed closely behind. I wasn’t eating, I started calling into work and would end up in my room where I barely left my bed. I was so sad that it physically hurt, my chest hurt so badly I was convinced I might die.
One of those days when I was struggling my in-laws came over and picked me up to go get my medication from the pharmacy. I remember sitting in the front seat of the truck. They held my hand, looked me in the eyes, and said, “We love you, You are our daughter.”
I don’t think I’ve ever felt so vulnerable.
A week later, that unconditional love was met with silence (story for another time)
The loss sent me into withdrawal.
I felt like I was losing my mind, for example there was one day I tore my room apart looking for a letter they had written to me.
“If you ever forget how much we love you, read this”
I felt like I was going crazy looking for that letter, I dumped out drawers, pulled clothes from closets, searched purses and boxes through tears so thick I could barely see. By this point I was sitting on the closet floor when my husband came in and asked what I was doing.
“I’ve forgotten,” I said, my voice shaking.
“I’ve forgotten how much they love me, and I’m trying to find the letter to remind myself.”
He held my hands and said quietly, “That’s not going to help”
But I kept looking.
This happened two or three more times that year, the garage, hall closets, and cabinets, anywhere my grief told me the letter might be I dove deep in hope to find that love again.
I never found it.
I think that’s for the best because I have a hard time letting go and if I had found that letter, I would have clung to the hope, the memory, the version of love that never existed.
When I think about it now, I feel anger and grief tangled together. If my own parents couldn’t love me the way I needed, why did I believe anyone else would? Just writing this makes me mad at myself.
But I’m learning to see this differently.
I think that’s for the best because I have a hard time letting go and if I had found that letter, I would have clung to the hope, the memory, the version of love that never existed.
When I think about it now, I feel anger and grief tangled together. If my own parents couldn’t love me the way I needed, why did I believe anyone else would? Just writing this makes me mad at myself.
But I’m learning to see this differently.
The real wound wasn’t that they stopped loving me. The wound was that I kept trying to find my worth in other people’s affection. I was searching for something external that was never meant to live outside of me.
There’s a song that says, “I can be brown, I can be blue, I can be violet sky,” and it keeps repeating, “Why don’t you like me?”
That line makes me giggle and ache at the same time. Because for most of my life, I shaped myself to match whoever I wanted to keep not just with parents but with friends, I changed tones, needs, and desires.
I mirrored, I adapted, I disappeared.
All for connection.
One day, standing in front of the mirror, I asked myself, Why don’t you like me?
And the answer surprised me.
I do like me.
I just never learned to look for love there.
Loving myself is not easy. Some days I annoy myself. Some days I catch myself trying to rearrange my plans and life to make things easier for others.
But I’m learning.
I’m learning to respect my decisions instead of shaming them. I’m learning to be proud of my determination. Of the fact that what I have didn’t come from my parents, or anyone else's, it came from me.
I worked for it and I survived for it, I built it.
And yes, to some people this might look selfish or self-centered, maybe even cold at times.
But it’s better than disappearing just to be loved.
Because I don’t need to earn my worth anymore, each day I choose to stay, accept, and love myself for being me. I've learned my lesson and will never go back to anyone I've been able to detach from.
Yes I am petty, angry, sad, I am also learning and becoming
I am an angel in progress.