Should I stay?
- Reads 10
- Votes 0
- Parts 3
Growing up in a household marked by domestic violence leaves lasting scars. Scars that shape how we love, trust, and connect with others. " Should I stay?" is both a reflection and a guide, written for those who have carried the weight of a difficult past into their relationships.
Drawing from personal experience and hard-won lessons, this book offers an honest look at the struggles that come with navigating love, communication, trust, and conflict after trauma. It explores the patterns we unconsciously repeat, the fears we carry, and the barriers that stand between us and healthy connection.
But it is also a book of hope. Through practical tools, reflective exercises, and compassionate insights, you will learn how to recognize unhealthy cycles, set boundaries, and foster stronger, more fulfilling relationships whether romantic, familial, or with yourself.
This is not just a story of survival; it's a roadmap to healing, resilience, and growth. For anyone determined to break free from the shadows of the past and build a future filled with healthier, more loving connections, this book will be both a companion and a guide.
All Rights Reserved
Join the largest storytelling communityGet personalized story recommendations, save your favourites to your library, and comment and vote to grow your community.
You may also like
A Map of Roads I Shouldn't Have Taken
A Map of Roads I Shouldn't Have Taken is a quiet confession in written form. It is a book about heartbreaks that left scars, choices that turned into mistakes, and the relentless search for love in places it could not stay. Told with the intimacy of a diary, it walks through broken roads, scattered memories, and moments that shaped a heart both fragile and resilient. This is not a guide to healing, but a map of detours- where longing met loss, where love was both a wound and a lifeline. It is my story written for those who have taken the wrong turns and kept walking anyway, carrying the shards, the scribbles, and the hope of being loved despite it all.Complete
If You Love Me
"If you love me, you won't leave me." Jessie has believed those words from her boyfriend, Josh, since senior year of high school. She loves him and doesn't want to leave him. Not even when he shouts at her and hits her. Jessie's best friend, Kolleen, can't stand seeing her in that situation. With a bit of convincing - and the worst beating she'd ever received - Jessie agrees to move into an apartment with Kolleen. But not long after, Jessie is scared the worst of her nightmares will soon become a reality. Josh goes missing, and suddenly Jessie would swear she's being followed. One night changes everything, and one person soon changes Jessie's outlook. A responding officer from that fateful night begins to seek her out, at first claiming it's part of his job. As she spends time with her new friend outside of his job, she starts realizing that her feelings are evolving. After being abused for over a year, Jessie is terrified she's falling in love. What's even more terrifying is that he might be, too. She isn't ready for love. Not yet. She makes up her mind that if he is falling, and if he does love her, he'll wait for her to be ready, and if she loves him, she won't let herself hurt him. Can the words that used to cage her in really be the key to her freedom? --- Featured On: @NA: Take a seat and let it be | Mature Content and 18+ reading list @NA: You deserve the world | Mental Health reading list Ambys Top Picks New Adult 2023Complete
The Love That Ruined Me
Started: 10/28/2025 Ended: 08/05/2026 I knew he was married, but I still let myself fall. We were friends before his wife came, not close, not strangers either. We never said what we truly felt, maybe because we were afraid to give it meaning. But fate played its cruel trick. We ended up living in the same boarding house, different rooms, the same secret. We both knew it was wrong, yet we crossed the line anyway. He was my first, my first love, my first sin, my first heartbreak. I thought I could handle it, but loving him was slowly destroying me. So I did the only thing that could save what was left of me. I left him. Because sometimes, walking away doesn't mean you stopped loving. It just means you've finally learned to love yourself.Complete
In Love With Blindfolds On
I gave the best of myself to someone who didn't have anything to lose. I didn't know how to avoid my lover's toxic and abusive flames. My lover's twisted words were like a maze inside of my head that I couldn't escape. Sadly, my lover's actions hypnotized my thoughts and paralyzed my thinking. I learned the hard way that love isn't leaning in for a kiss, and a fist meets you halfway. Love isn't being a punching bag because someone decided they wanted to beat on you today. Love isn't saying I love you just because someone wants to keep you to themselves. I tried to be there for my lover, but I learned it is impossible to fix the broken pieces when the glass has shattered. There will always be pieces that are not repairable. However, I kept going right back to the person who I needed to walk away from. I was afraid, and I wasn't brave enough to wake up from this nightmare! I made the choice to suffer when life is meant to be lived and enjoyed. Will I find the courage to know my worth and know that I deserve better than the distasteful lies that are whispered in my ears? Will I have the strength to fight my insecurities? Will, I set myself free, or will I let my love be the death of me?Complete
A Heart Rewritten
I thought moving back to my father's country would be a fresh start-a chance to find myself in the place I was born but never really knew. I didn't expect to fall so fast for someone who would break me in ways I still struggle to name. What followed shattered everything: my trust, my voice, my sense of who I was. But this isn't just a story about pain. It's about the slow, quiet strength of rebuilding. About family in its most fragile form. About learning that healing isn't a straight line-and sometimes, love finds you when you're no longer looking for it. This is the story of how I got lost, how I came home, and how, one day, I looked in the mirror and finally recognized the girl staring back.
And You Stayed...
She is not cold. She is tired. Ruth has spent so long surviving her own mind that loving someone feels like another responsibility she might fail. She pushes. She withdraws. She convinces herself she is protecting him. Dylan loves without knowing where to stop. He stays when it would be easier to leave. He calls it devotion. He does not realize it is slowly costing him pieces of himself. When honesty finally breaks through, love is no longer soft. It is heavy. It is breathless. It is two people trying not to drown while holding on to each other. "And You Stayed" is not about perfect romance. It is about what happens when love is real but oxygen is not. For readers who believe staying is sometimes harder than leaving.
Inked in Pain
Things have changed. A marriage that was believed to be built on a solid foundation is put to the rest when storms roll in. Communication stops, needs are neglected and doors are opened for outside influence. Is it worth saving? Are years of love and unity worth saving? When the storm passes who will they be? Will the home they've built fall or be reinforced.Complete
Not My Fault
💔 Not My Fault - The Story of a Girl Who Forgot How to Breathe Serene doesn't speak unless spoken to. She says sorry before she says hello. She writes to someone she's never met - because that's the only place she feels safe. Home was never home. Love never looked like love. And survival meant disappearing, even in plain sight. But then, someone notices. He sees the flinches. The forced smiles. The fear in her breath. And for the first time in her life, someone doesn't look away. This isn't about a girl who falls in love. It's about a girl who finally learns she's not to blame. Not for the bruises. Not for the silence. Not for the hurt she never asked for. It's not her fault. Maybe... it was never her fault at all. A raw, soul-baring journey through abuse, healing, and the quiet kind of love that doesn't fix you - but sits beside you while you do.
A Map of Roads I Shouldn't Have Taken is a quiet confession in written form. It is a book about heartbreaks that left scars, choices that turned into mistakes, and the relentless search for love in places it could not stay. Told with the intimacy of a diary, it walks through broken roads, scattered memories, and moments that shaped a heart both fragile and resilient. This is not a guide to healing, but a map of detours- where longing met loss, where love was both a wound and a lifeline. It is my story written for those who have taken the wrong turns and kept walking anyway, carrying the shards, the scribbles, and the hope of being loved despite it all.
More detailsContent Guidelines