13/06/2026
Why My Rope Isn’t a Safety Line, It’s a Noose
For most of my life, I believed relationships were about holding the rope.
When someone I loved wanted to climb, I became their support. I steadied them. Encouraged them. Carried weight that wasn’t mine to carry. I believed that was what love was: helping each other reach the top.
The problem was that I was often the only one holding the rope.
Over the years, I watched people build careers, confidence, identities, dreams, and entire empires while I remained on the ground supporting their ascent. I told myself that one day, when they reached the top, they would look down and offer me a hand.
Instead, many of them cut the rope.
Some left without a backward glance. Some left after taking everything they needed. Some simply stopped holding their end when life became inconvenient.
One almost made the metaphor literal.
He took me climbing. I was inexperienced and trusted him completely. As I struggled over a ledge, I slipped. My hands lost their grip. I fell.
Only later did I realise he had been so distracted texting another woman that he had forgotten I was attached to the other end of the rope.
For a moment, I was falling headfirst towards concrete because the person responsible for my safety had placed his attention somewhere else.
He caught me just in time.
Years later, I realised that moment wasn’t unusual. It was simply the clearest illustration of a pattern that had followed me throughout my life.
Again and again, I trusted people who treated my support as a resource rather than a gift.
Again and again, I gave people access to parts of me they had not earned.
Again and again, I handed over the rope.
People often say trust is a safety line.
I disagree.
Trust is only a safety line when it is held by someone trustworthy.
In the wrong hands, it becomes a noose.
When you’ve spent years being emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, or physically harmed by people you trusted, eventually you stop asking, “Why don’t I trust anymore?”
You start asking, “Why would I?”
That question makes people uncomfortable.
We’re told that healing means learning to trust again. We’re told to be vulnerable. To let people in. To take chances.
But what if every chance you’ve taken has cost you a piece of yourself?
What if every person you’ve trusted has walked away carrying something they had no right to take?
At some point, caution stops being cynicism and starts being wisdom.
For a long time, I thought the lesson was never to hand anyone the rope again.
I thought survival meant self-sufficiency.
No dependence. No vulnerability. No risk.
But eventually I realised something important.
The lesson wasn’t that trust is dangerous.
The lesson was that trust should be earned.
I had spent years handing people the entire rope before they’d proven they could hold a single strand.
I confused love with rescue.
Support with obligation.
Loyalty with self-sacrifice.
The answer wasn’t to stop trusting.
The answer was to stop surrendering myself.
Today, I don’t believe everyone deserves my trust.
I believe trust is built slowly.
I believe people reveal themselves through consistency rather than promises.
I believe actions matter more than words.
Most importantly, I believe that trusting someone else is less frightening when you trust yourself first.
Because the real security was never the person holding the rope.
The real security is knowing that if they let go, you will survive.
You may grieve.
You may hurt.
You may lose pieces of a future you imagined.
But you will remain.
The people who left taught me many painful lessons.
They taught me what neglect looks like.
What betrayal looks like.
What imbalance looks like.
But they also taught me something unexpected.
They taught me the value of my own rope.
Today, I don’t hand it over lightly.
Not because I am bitter.
Not because I have stopped believing in people.
But because I finally understand its worth.
And if someone wants to climb beside me, they are welcome.
They simply have to prove they know how to hold a rope before I trust them with mine.
