It Took Me A Really Long Time To Realize Exactly How Horrible You Were For Me

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I was so caught up in this new and exciting feeling called infatuation (which soon turned to genuine love) that I forgot to stand up for the one person that I should’ve protected the most. Me.

I let you abuse my emotions and my endless capacity to care about and love you. How was I supposed to know that your insecurities were way beyond any of my abilities? The shock of being treated in such a way blinded me from where this road was taking me. You twisted my words and actions to make it seem like I was the one wronging you when it was clearly the other way around. You’d make me feel guilty simply for just being the person I am and slowly over time, those little things that made me who I am started to chip away. I was your sick little work of art that you planned to mold into the person you desired.

You never loved me for me, you never even planned on it because when I asked you why you ever instigated this relationship if you knew the kind of person I was, and you knew that there were things about me you didn’t like, your answer was, “I decided that I could change the little things I didn’t like.”

This shocked me but I still stayed. I stayed because I couldn’t see what you were doing to me. You turned me from this lively and carefree person into someone who wanted to climb under a rock and never come out for I feared that I’d do something to upset. I started to see my own personality, my little quirks as my enemies. When the only enemy in sight was you. I started to feel guilty for my normal human actions that come with simply the act of going through your daily life. I started to believe that I was the issue. That I needed to change myself because that is what you deserved and what I deserved. I felt the need to turn myself into someone I could no longer recognize because you convinced me that me being the way I am was wrong.

For two and a half years you tortured and tormented me, you emotionally abused me. You took my mistakes and used them against me like weapons. I opened up to you, let you understand me and know me, and all you did was use that to hurt me.

When I finally decided that enough was enough, you put me through hell for standing up for myself, for asking and demanding the respect that I deserved as a human being. You came crawling back and fed me words as sweet as sugar that I couldn’t turn away from. You convinced me that we could make it work, that I would be treated the way any one should be treated by the person they love. You told me you’d be patient and kind. Slowly, I started to trust you again, I started to believe that we were going to be okay and that I had made the right decision. I told you about the things I’d been up to while you were gone. Even the things I wasn’t proud of.

Things were really looking up for a while. Until you unleashed that dormant monster inside of you. Every tiny ounce of patience you had graced me with was suddenly gone. We were back at square one. Back to your unreasonable demands and arguments. I had opened up to you once again and here you were, using my own words to kill me. I suffered until I was hollow inside. I was crying and begging for your forgiveness almost every night for a month because I believed that I had somehow wronged you. A part of me knew that there was nothing I could’ve done to deserve this but I loved you too much and I cared too much to be able to let you go. I took your shit for a really long time.

You spat your angry and disgusting words at me and I took it. Every single time because I kept reminding myself that love requires patience. It requires you to overlook your own feelings but love is not a one way street. I slowly started to realize this and the more I understood, the less I cared about how you reacted or what you thought.

You traumatized me pretty badly because even after things between us had cooled down (only because you finally had me where you wanted me) I was still so afraid to be myself and act like myself.

Finally, I reached a breaking point. You ended things over a petty argument and I was done. You told me you were sorry, that leaving me was not what you wanted but I wasn’t going to take you back. Ever.

I left because you’re a horrible person. You claimed to have love me but no one should be treated the way I was by the person who says they care about you more than anyone else in the world. I stood up for myself because I could not take the constant anxiety and pain that came with being with a person like you. I stood up for myself because I finally realized what it felt to be free when you were overcome with pride and decided to let me go. It was the best decision I could’ve made and I don’t regret it one bit. Once I found the strength to distance myself from you, I appreciated the part of me I had pushed away in order to satisfy you and I realized that she deserved my love and care before anyone else. My responsibility was towards her and not you.