Your brain chooses people who hurt you. It's not love. It's not fate. It's not even chance. It's a pattern.
Your brain remembers the person who hurt you before. It remembers how she behaved. How she spoke. How she ignored you. How she humiliated you. And then, when you meet someone similar, your brain reminds you. But it doesn't tell you. It doesn't show you. Instead it tells you it's love.
It's on the level of the body. The physics of the first meeting is the physics you know from childhood. You know that energy. You know that type of person. Your body thinks it's home. That it's safety. But safety is danger. Home is hell.
The neural pathway is created. Your brain knows it better than you do. When you meet that kind of person, your brain activates. You think you're falling in love. But really you're recognizing yourself. You're recognizing the pattern your body knows. You're recognizing the energy you felt a thousand times before.
You tell yourself that this time you're choosing freely. That this time it will be different. That this time it will change. But it's not freedom. It's repetition. It's a pattern your brain learned to recognize as safe. Because for it, safety and pain aren't different things. They're things it didn't run from when it was small. They're things it learned to survive.
And when she hurts you again, you'll be surprised. But you won't be. Deep down, where you won't admit it, you knew everything. Your brain sent you there on purpose. Because it knows. Because it's the only thing it knows. Because it's the only thing it trusts.
That's the pattern. And you'll decide about it when it's too late.