I love bread. Like a lot. I saw this post one time, and I totally felt it. It said “Y’all need to stop with this ‘bread is not good for you’ foolishness. Jesus did not say I am the broccoli of life. Nor did he say give us this day our daily kale. Stop. Jesus is life. Jesus is the bread of life. Bread is life.”

Bread is life. Breadcrumbing, though? Not so much.

Not long ago I was you, reading articles similar to this one. Realizing the toxicity of old relationships and losing self-worth with each word. I had been mesmerized with hope for so long, wanting too badly to not be lonely, to be loved, to feel something. But now one of the defining features of my life is this quote from Taylor Swift: “She lost him but found herself, and somehow that was everything.”

I want to make sure you know this to be abundantly clear and irrevocably true: you are worth more than the unhealthy ways people have treated you. You are more than lost apologies and false hopes wrapped in pretty packaging. You are not dumb for staying while you did. You are not without hope.

Having to step back from relationships you put so much work into is hard, as is leaving the memories and good moments. But you have to remember these things: you know the person’s character and the pain you’ve felt.

I’ll say it again: You are worth more than the unhealthy ways people have treated you.

You are the girl who loves with reckless abandon and who brightens the day of those around her. You are the last fry at the bottom of the bag when someone thinks they’d eaten them all. You are a warm drink on a cold day. You are powerful and impressive and beautiful in every single way. No one -- no one -- can take that away from you. That’s who you’ve been, and that’s who you’ll always be.

I know this can be hard to believe. I know it hurts. I know you may make excuses, which may be more or less reality. I know that maybe it hasn’t been the first time, that you’ve been used before, that you’re learning how to love yourself in a world with people who seem to live to tear you down.

That’s on the world, not on you. That’s on the abusive partners and perpetrators and bad friends and almost relationships and broken family ties. You are not what happened to you. Read that over and over, as many times as you need.

And when you need me, I’m here.