Love and hate can exist on the same plane.

A child is born with a biological attachment to her parents. In order to survive, she loves them. She cries because she is hungry and then her parents hear her and feed her. She relies on them for life. But, sometimes you have shit for parents and you cry for food and they ignore you, or yell at you or don't protect you and since you depend on them for survival, you must still love them. But when, that happens the narrative in your head changes to keep you safe. You then blame yourself for your shitty parents. You think, I must be bad and that's why she yelled at me, or hit me or neglected me or allow people to do bad things to me. And then you can still love your parents even though they are shitty. Because you still need to rely on them to survive. And this keeps you safe.

But what happens when you grow up and are safe? You continue to think that every one's emotions and sadness is your fault. Like you have some kind of control over peoples emotions and actions with your own behavior. 

I will tell you what happens. You spend the rest of your life scared to make the wrong decisions, to show anyone your weaknesses, to allow anyone to know your bad days. You spend all your time and energy making other people happy. Because if they're happy, you're not a bad person. This whole time I have been looking for someone to love me, someone to love the little Kristy's, the ones that thought it was their fault. But now, I know, I need to love them. I need to see them, and tell them I love them, I need to show them compassion, remind them how proud of them I am for carrying me this long, getting me here, fighting for survival. I need to remind them they were brave, strong and loving and they are not bad.

Do you know what this means? That I can no longer blame me for why my parents left, why they neglected me, why they abused me. I have to blame them, which is in conflict for my love for them. And for now, just acknowledging that, IS progress, painful and hard, but still progress.

"Nobody knows, Nobody knows but me, That I sometimes cry." -Pink