What Does It Mean to 'Break the Cycle'?
I’ve been seeing this phrase a lot lately. “Break the cycle.” It sounds so strong, so decisive. Like grabbing a piece of history and snapping it over your knee. For a long time, I thought it was something other people did—people with more strength, more clarity, more something than I had. I didn’t know that breaking the cycle begins not with a grand gesture, but with a devastating moment of recognition. It starts when you look in the mirror and see the face of the person who hurt you staring back. I grew up in a world where love was often spelled with a question mark. It was conditional. It was transactional. It was loud, sometimes violent, and often unpredictable. The men in my life were often broken boys, hardened by a lack of care, their pain curdling into rage. I witnessed things a child should never see—the sharp edge of words and weapons, the terrifying spectacle of a grown man’s unmet need for love. I stored all of this away, not knowing I was building a blueprint for my own fut...
