Unbreak My Heart
- Red
- Dec 17, 2025
- 4 min read
She sat on the cold marble steps inside the court, it was for the Decree Nisi.
She didn't understand what that meant.
All she knew was that this was the part where he could come, would come...and fight for her.
Her eyes stayed fixed on the revolving door, every turn a possibility.
The marble beneath her was hard and unyielding, but she barely noticed.
She checked her shoes - clean.
She brushed her dress again and again, picking off imaginary fluff.
He would hate that.
She smoothed the fabric beneath her so it wouldn’t crease.
He would hate that too.
She fidgeted with her hair, catching her reflection in the glass panes beside the steps. Perfect.
She had to look perfect.
He would like that.
He would be pleased.
Her heart leapt every time polished shoes appeared through the door, only to sink when the person emerged and wasn’t him.
Relief, sadness, disappointment,
feelings tangled together in a way she couldn’t name.
Confusing. So confusing.
The last time she saw him, he promised he’d be back in two weeks. She didn’t know how much time had passed since then...
only that it was many many months.
She remembered the moment everything changed...
her mum in the bath, her perched on the toilet lid, talking.
That was when her mum said,
“I’m filing for divorce.”
She understood what that meant.
Relief, sadness, disappointment,
feelings tangled together in a way she couldn’t name.
Confusing. So confusing.
Sadness had already seeped in long before that.
It had been there for as long as she could remember,
weaving itself around her heart,
infiltrating every vessel and cell...
gently at first-until it became part of her.
She didn't want him to come...
she was scared of him.
He was a frightening man,
an unpredictable man,
a violent man.
She wanted him to come...
to say he loved her,
to fight for her.
Even though,
he was a frightening man,
an unpredictable man,
a violent man.
He didn't come.
She understood what that meant.
Relief, sadness, disappointment,
feelings tangled together in a way she couldn’t name.
Confusing. So confusing.
And the sadness became her.
This piece was created in resonance with this song.
It speaks to the unspeakable often unnameable pain that is caused by a disappearing, absent, abusive father.
A narcissistic father.
My father never came back.
He was a man who only knew control through violence.
His only tool was fear.
Any charm he had was saved for when he needed something and then it was resurrected with precision-like skill.
To others, strangers, he was genial, likeable.
To us, he was terrifying.
I heard this song again very recently and flashed back to how many times I played this song when I was with my first partner, thinking it was about the pain of that romantic relationship.
That partner that was also;
a frightening man,
and unpredictable man,
a violent man.
A man fifteen years older than me when I was just sixteen.
But the painful, sad love songs I was drawn to were not really about him.
Here, relief and grief were woven together so tightly it was impossible to tell one from the other.
That first heartbreak was one I kept re-tracing.
This father-wound scripted my future. It told me:
Love looks like fear.
Belonging feels like waiting.
The only attention I deserve is the kind that keeps me small, clean, perfect and terrified.
The rejection by a father to a child is soul-crushing.
It can take a lifetime to restore.
It can take years of work.
It can seem to delay your progress.
It can feel like your life takes longer to really take off.
It can take half your life.
But restoration is possible.
It is possible to recover.
It can seem like people with two loving parents almost have an unfair advantage, finding their way in life earlier, easier, able to access their potential, purpose, and alignment sooner.
Our paths are just different and our roads are built from the ashes of burned bridges - but are forged from ones that know how to fall apart and be remade, often many times.
And, here is what I know now:
The wound is not the whole story.
It shaped me, but it does not define me.
I have learned that love can feel like peace.
Belonging can feel like freedom.
Attention can feel like kindness, not fear.
The little girl on the steps is not gone. She is right here in my voice, in these words, in the speaking of the unspeakable.
The little girl on the steps walks with me, she is no longer waiting.
She is learning to run, toward herself, toward safety, toward a life where love is not a weapon but a shelter.
And that is how the heart begins to unbreak.
#mentalhealthawareness, #traumahealing, #traumarecovery, #selfcare, #recovery #emotionalabuse, #toxicrelationships, #cptsd, #gaslighting, #childhoodtrauma
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