If You Come From A Broken Home, Read This

I came from a broken home. I saw hatred more than love. I saw family tearing each other down rather than supporting and loving each other. Home was the place I ran away from the most. I used to see a lot of people saying how much they couldn’t wait to get back to their homes and how it’s their safe place, but mine was never this place for me. It was the place where everywhere else felt more peaceful and safer.

I thought that if you came out of a broken home, you couldn’t build a good one on your own. I thought that if I never saw what support and love looked like between families, I would never be able to provide them either. I thought that partners were something that you were supposed to have because the world told you to, but they were not someone that would lift you up or be there for you but someone that would knock you down every chance they got. That’s what I expected from partners. That’s the kind of relationship I thought I would be stuck in. I thought that I would relive my childhood all over again but in its adult version.

I thought that I was going to build yet another broken home that I would live my life trying to escape from. I thought that I would have to put up my guard to avoid all the hits and stabs I was going to get every time I was in it.

I spent a long time learning that my future home doesn’t have to be like the home I came from. My relationship doesn’t have to be the same as my parents’. I came to understand that I will always have a choice to not build yet another broken home and to not stay in a relationship that tears me down. I learned that my life doesn’t have to be the same as my parents’. I saw healthy homes and healthy relationships, and I learned that these kinds of relationships and lives are doable.

I understood that my home is not the only idea of a home out there. I learned that I can always choose to be different and to live differently. I thought I was the only one coming from a broken home, but then I saw others who were coming from broken homes too, and I saw how beautifully they were trying to build a home that has nothing to do with the one they came from.

So, to anyone who came from a broken home: Your home is not the only meaning of home out there. It’s not the representation of what all homes look like. Your family is not what a family should be like. When you get more exposure to life, you’ll see other meanings for a family along the way, and you will realize that you can always choose to build a better and healthier one for yourself. We have lived through the bitterness of a broken home, and we don’t want anyone to experience what we have experienced. Please have faith that your home won’t be the same as the one you came from and try to give yourself and others what you never got the chance to have.