The Most Dangerous Lie I Ever Believed: “They Made Me Feel This Way

 The Most Dangerous Lie I Ever Believed: “They Made Me Feel This Way”

By Daniel Ryan Cotler

Today, I want to speak directly from the heart. This is one of those honest conversations where healing meets truth, and maybe, just maybe, you’ll recognize a version of your past self in what I’m about to say.

For years, I carried a belief that felt completely true. But it wasn’t.

I used to tell myself things like:

“They made me feel like I had no worth.”

“They made me feel invisible.”

“They made me feel like I didn’t matter.”

And I hear countless survivors say the same thing. These words sound right. They feel valid. After all, when someone constantly violates your boundaries, chips away at your self-worth, and manipulates your reality, what else are you supposed to feel?

But here’s the truth that changed everything for me and I share this not to judge, but to empower.

They didn’t make me feel that way.

What hurt me most was that I kept allowing myself to feel that way… by staying.

Let me break that down.

Every time I tolerated disrespect, I reinforced the idea that I was willing to be treated that way.

Every time I kept quiet to avoid conflict or make someone else comfortable, I silenced my truth.

Every time I made excuses for cruelty, I participated in my own devaluation.

Every time I lowered my standards, looked the other way, or accepted another broken apology I was sending a message to myself and to them:

“You can treat me this way. I will stay.”

It wasn’t because I enjoyed being treated poorly.

It wasn’t because I didn’t know something was wrong.

It was because, deep down, I hadn’t yet recognized my own worth.

And here’s the hardest part of all:

The deepest grief I carried wasn’t over what they did to me. It was over who I allowed myself to become in order to keep them in my life.

That’s not self-blame. That’s self-awareness.

Healing is not about punishing yourself for what you didn’t know. It’s about telling the truth to yourself for the first time in a long time.

It’s realizing:

I wasn’t just a victim of what they did.

I became a participant in what I allowed.

Before you put your guard up, let me be clear this isn’t about blaming yourself for the abuse you endured.

This is about reclaiming your power.

It’s about recognizing the only thing you’ve ever truly had control over:

The power to walk away.

The power to say, “This energy is not welcome in my life.”

The power to understand, “This behavior is not love.”

The power to decide, “This pain has no place in my purpose.”

The power to declare, “You don’t get to define my worth.”

If you are still giving chance after chance to someone who has repeatedly shown you who they are…

If you are still hoping they’ll change if you just love them a little harder, suffer a little quieter, or wait a little longer

I urge you to ask yourself:

What part of you still believes you don’t deserve better?

What part of you thinks pain is the price of connection?

You don’t have to be fully healed to have boundaries.

You don’t need to be perfect to say no.

You don’t need their permission to protect your peace.

All you need is one moment of truth.

One moment of clarity.

One moment where you decide:

“I’m done shrinking myself to fit into someone else’s small version of love.”

“I’m done handing over my value to people who don’t know how to hold it.”

“I’m done letting others dictate how I feel about myself.”

Because here is the truth:

Your value does not decrease when someone else fails to see it.

It only decreases when you forget it’s there.

So today, I encourage you to stop asking, “Why do they keep making me feel like this?”

Instead, ask the real question:

“Why do I keep letting them?”

And then, without shame…

Without guilt…

Without waiting for anyone else’s permission…

Take your power back.

Because it was never theirs to keep.

They just had it on loan.