It was the central delusion of my life.

It took a fabricated crime to cure me of it.

I have thought a great deal, since, about that particular delusion, because I think it is one of the most common and most costly errors a person can make, and it kept me trapped for two decades.

The belief was simple, and it felt like virtue, which is what made it so hard to see: I believed that respect was something I could earn, from anyone, if I only produced enough evidence of my worth.

That love was a wage, and hard work was the labor, and if I simply worked hard enough and long enough, the wage would eventually be paid.

It is a beautiful belief, and it is true of many people and many relationships — but it is catastrophically false about the specific kind of person my family were, and I could not tell the difference, because no one had ever taught me there was one.