“Calm. Kindness. Kinship. Love. I’ve given up all chance at inner peace. I’ve made my mind a sunless space. I share my dreams with ghosts. I wake up every day to an equation I wrote 15 years ago from which there’s only one conclusion, I’m damned for what I do. My anger, my ego, my unwillingness to yield, my eagerness to fight, they’ve set me on a path from which there is no escape. I yearned to be a savior…

Anyone who has ever been hurt creates their own narrative — a story they tell themselves that gives their lives meaning.
These narratives give you the solace that your current circumstances are not your fault, and drive you. Over time, your narrative becomes your identity, and you convince yourself that you can never be anything other than that identity. You become trapped in the moments of your past that set your life in a certain direction, turning them into pivotal…