Why They Want to Keep You Broken

I’ve been thinking about something that’s bothered me for a long time: why do people seem to want to hold you in your past dysfunction? Why do they criticize and belittle you for changing? Why do they talk badly about you and try to make you remember every mistake you’ve made, and some you didn’t even make, when you choose to be better?

I used to think it was about me. That maybe I wasn’t changing fast enough, or in the right way, or convincingly enough. But I’ve come to understand something darker and more complex about human nature.

When I started healing, when I began building something better from the wreckage of my earlier life, I expected celebration. I expected people to be happy that I was no longer the broken person they’d known. Instead, I found resistance. Criticism. A strange nostalgia for my dysfunction that felt like betrayal.

The truth is, my dysfunction served other people’s needs. When I was struggling, I was safe, predictable, controllable, grateful for scraps of kindness. I was someone they could rescue, someone they could feel superior to, someone whose chaos made their own lives look stable by comparison. My pain gave their lives meaning and purpose.

When I stopped needing to be saved, some people didn’t know how to relate to me anymore. When I stopped accepting treatment that my healthier self recognized as unacceptable, suddenly I was “difficult” or “changed” in ways that weren’t flattering. When I set boundaries, I became selfish. When I chose my peace over their comfort, I became the problem.

I’ve learned that my growth holds up a mirror that many people don’t want to look into. If I can change, really, fundamentally change, then what does that say about their own choices to stay stuck? If I can heal from trauma, break generational cycles, and build something beautiful from nothing, then their excuses start to sound hollow, even to themselves.

Some people have built entire identities around the story of who they think I was (even if they didn’t really know me). They’ve told their story about me so many times that my transformation threatens their sense of reality. They’ve organized their understanding of justice, relationships, and human nature around the belief that people don’t really change. My healing disrupts their worldview, and rather than expand their understanding, they’d rather pull me back down to the familiar dysfunction.

The hardest part is realizing that some of the people who claimed they wanted me to have a better life actually wanted a very specific version of “better”, one that still served their needs. They wanted me grateful and dependent, not truly free. They wanted me healed enough to function, but not so healed that I’d recognize how they’d contributed to keeping me small.

I’ve had to accept that not everyone will celebrate my liberation. Some people are so invested in the version of me that made them feel good about themselves that they’ll actively work to undermine the version of me that’s actually good for me.

But here’s what I know now, my journey toward wholeness doesn’t require their approval. My growth doesn’t need their understanding. The peace I’ve built, like those quiet mornings when I can finally breathe deeply, when I can sit with my own thoughts without shame, when I can make choices based on what I want rather than what I fear, that peace is mine.

I’ve learned to protect my transformation the way I protect anything precious. I’ve learned to recognize the voices that want to call me back to dysfunction, and I’ve learned to keep walking forward anyway. Because the person I am today is worth more than the comfort of people who need me to stay broken.

They can keep their stories about who they think I am. I’m busy writing new chapters.