I Fight Because I Know What It Feels Like…

I fight because I know what it feels like to be manipulated into loving someone who never wanted to love me.

Because I’ve lived in a world where the truth wasn’t convenient, so it was erased.

As a child, I was taught to love my abuser.

In parental alienation, children are taught the opposite: to reject the love of the parent who actually loved them.

To believe that care is danger.

That safety is selfish.

That truth is betrayal.

It’s the same manipulation, just flipped.

One child is trained to protect an abuser.

Another is trained to destroy a protector.

Both are victims of adults who needed control more than they needed honesty.

And both will grow up confused, afraid, and grieving a relationship they were never allowed to fully understand.

I’ve lived on both sides of the lie, and I survived.

And now I will never be silent while it happens to someone else’s child.

-Nicole