Asking for Love in Unlovable Ways

It took me 35 years to learn that love doesn’t need to hurt in order to be real.

The patterns I grew up with weren’t love. They were survival strategies. Generational. Cultural. Normalized in a way that made me think chaos was just how families worked.

As a child, I watched my parents fight—physically, verbally, emotionally—tearing each other down until nothing was left but silence. I was the scared kid hiding in the closet, crying for my grandparents, waiting for it all to end.

And when I became an adult, I carried that wiring forward. My nervous system only knew one way to exist: braced for impact. 

I nurtured those wounds like they were part of me, because in a way, they were. For years, I mistook lashing out, shutting down, holding people at a distance as “normal.” Needing someone felt more dangerous than losing them.

It wasn’t until I started giving myself love first that things shifted. Love isn’t a performance. It’s not a test. It’s not meant to be earned through pain.

Giving yourself love first means doing the hard work of understanding what happened to you. Naming it. Building awareness around the patterns you didn’t choose but still carry. And then making the micro shifts that let your system breathe differently.

The trap is telling yourself you’re broken. That you need to be fixed. That it’s all your parents’ fault. And while the pain is real, staying in that story keeps you stuck.

Reframing your healing changes everything. You stop asking, “What’s wrong with me?” and start asking, “What happened to me, and how do I want to move forward now?” That question becomes your roadmap.

And when you follow it, you learn that love doesn’t need to be proven, chased, or painful to count. It can be steady. It can be safe. It can start with you.

The people who need love the most rarely ask for it in a way that feels easy. They don’t come with open arms. They come with anger. With silence. With criticism. With withdrawal. With walls so high it feels impossible to climb them. 

And the hardest part to embrace is that the people who need love the most will rarely say so. Which means the work isn’t about fixing them or convincing them. 

It’s about deciding how you’ll love yourself enough to hold boundaries, while still recognizing what’s underneath someone’s sharpness. 

Because sometimes, what looks unlovable isn’t unlovable at all. It’s just unhealed.

Join the Life in Focus Community 💬

I’m officially launching the Life in Focus Community today.

Healing and growth don’t happen in isolation. They happen in spaces where truth is allowed to breathe, where the hard questions aren’t off-limits, and where you can be seen without needing to perform.

You’ll step into:

• Exclusive content I won’t share anywhere else like personal insights, lessons, and resources to keep you grounded.

• Real connection with people who are walking their own healing journeys, ready to listen and share without judgment.

• Direct access to me inside the community. I’ll be present, engaged, and creating for this space first.

• Support that feels genuine, not performative. This isn’t another shiny platform. It’s a place built for honesty and growth.

This is the very beginning. You’ll be part of the first group to shape what this community becomes.

👉 JOIN NOW.

With you on the journey, and see you inside. ❤️

Suttida