You Are Still Ruining My World, Even Though You’re Gone

By

I erased you from my future because you did not deserve a spot sitting alongside me. You brought me too much pain, stress, anxiety, heartache. I knew walking away from you was the right thing to do — but I guess I should have done it sooner, because even though I no longer have contact with you, you are still causing trouble. You have created lasting damage. You have given me baggage I am unable to drop at my feet.

I am paranoid because of you. I am self-conscious because of you. I am a skeptic because of you. I am a completely different person than I was before you entered my universe. You changed me against my will. You turned me into someone who assumes the worst case scenario to be true, someone fidgety and afraid.

Even though you are gone, you are still finding ways to ruin me. You are making me doubt myself from afar now. You are causing destruction from miles away.

I still feel insecure when I stare at my reflection, because even though all of my friends tell me I am better off without you, even though I realize you were a toxic presence poisoning my paradise, your opinion once mattered to me more than anything in the universe. I thought that leaving you behind would make me feel better about myself, and on certain days it does, but on other days, I feel like the same lost person. The same person who needed your approval, your validation, your love.

Even though you are long gone, even though I now couldn’t care less about what you think of me, my self-consciousness has not gone away. Whenever I come across someone new, someone who has the potential to give me everything you lacked, I wonder whether I am disturbing them, whether I am wasting my time with them, whether I am not nearly good enough for them.

Because of you, I cannot see myself as someone of value — and I cannot accept love with open arms anymore. I hesitate to grasp it. I allow it to slip away without fighting for it because I do not see the point.

I freak myself out by fretting over whether history will repeat itself. I search rapidly for red flags because the last thing I want is to discover another you.

You are no longer in my world, but the memories of you remain. When I think back to all of the things you put me through, I am still upset. I am still angry. I am still hurt. I am still confused. I don’t understand why you acted the way you did. I finally realize that I never deserved what you put me through, but that doesn’t make moving forward any easier.

I can erase your photos from my phone and your name from my contact list, but I can never forget the way you treated me. I can never forget what it felt like to be stampeded by your ‘love’.