This Is How You Love Someone Who Is Damaged

God & Man

When a girl is damaged it isn’t something to look at like she’ll be tough to deal with. Hard to love. Difficult. Oftentimes, the ones who are like that are the ones capable of loving the deepest and loving the most. They are the ones who haven’t been loved the way they deserved and it was there they learned its meaning.

Damaged girls come out the strongest. They come out with edges that aren’t smooth. But they have a sensitivity that is unlike anything else.

They are the ones who have had experiences that have shaped them. At a time when maybe someone else’s control dictated her life. Control of choices. Control of her life. Control of her mind. Her body. Everything weren’t hers to choose but rather answering to someone to made her feel powerless. Someone who needed to control her to feel their own sense of worth. Someone who needed to break her down to build themselves back up. That’s how girls become damaged. When their main purpose is there to service another. Emotionally. Physically. Mentally.

It was there she learned about trust but learned she could only trust herself.

It was there she learned about strength but learned it had to be all her own and she couldn’t rely on anyone.

It was there she learned how to hide emotions or it would be considered a weakness and used against her.

It was there she learned even the worst situations she was capable of overcoming.

A girl who is damaged is one who has survived. One who has chosen to keep going despite being given every reason not to.

But despite overcoming something that caused pain it doesn’t go away. It haunts her. She lives with her experiences she regrets and takes full responsibility even if the blame isn’t hers to bear. Even if something happened that wasn’t her fault, she takes ownership of it. She hangs onto it not letting it go, even if it haunts her to cling to. She feels she deserves to live with the weight of things that aren’t hers to carry.

And it isn’t until someone comes along and teaches everything she’s been through wasn’t her fault. She didn’t deserve it. She doesn’t need to keep holding on.

But she too fears to let someone that close. She fears to let someone in. She fears vulnerability because she was taught that is a sign of weakness.

Her walls are built to protect her but it also keeps people out. She thinks she’s better off alone. She thinks it’s better this way. She thinks no one will understand her damage.

And she doesn’t want pity. She doesn’t want people feeling bad. She just wants it to no longer affect her but with every step she takes and every person she pushes away, it’s a reminder of that experience affecting her today.

It’s always there. Haunting her in a way.

The reminder she will never be fixed or be whole.

So when you love a girl who is damaged you have to remind her you aren’t trying to fix her or put her broken pieces back together. You aren’t trying to change her. You accept her for all she is. And it’ll take time and patience but she’ll learn to accept herself too.

You have to understand someone in the past taught her she wasn’t capable or deserving of someone else’s love. It is in your ability to unteach her these things and show her through example how it should have been the whole time what she deserved from the start.

When you love a girl who is damaged you are accepting her flaws and all. You are accepting her on her worst day and on her best. You are loving her in the moments she breaks down because things in the past still haunt her. You are the arms that will hold her at her weakest. You are the strength on the worst days. You are the light in the darkness for her.

It’s teaching her she’s made it this far alone and now she doesn’t have to. It’s teaching her she doesn’t need to be fixed or changed. She just has to accept herself and her past which comes as the greatest challenge.

Loving a girl who is damaged isn’t just about winning her over or trying to prove you deserve her it’s more about teaching what she deserves and what you will never stop giving her, which is the unconditional love she’s probably lacked from another.

But it isn’t so much you’re filling a void from the past as you are filling her life in a way that she always thought would be empty.

When you gain her trust you’ll realize how she might be a little difficult but her ability to love, the way she does it the strength she has become something you admire so greatly. Had she not experienced the things she did, she wouldn’t have turned out as perfect in your eyes as she appears to be. Thought Catalog Logo Mark


About the author

Kirsten Corley

Writer living in Hoboken, NJ with my 2 dogs.

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