Listen To Me: You Didn't Deserve What They Did To You

Listen To Me: You Didn’t Deserve What They Did To You

When you leave a toxic situation and finally come to terms with how screwed up your relationship was, it’s easy to place blame on yourself. It’s easy to assume that you wouldn’t have been stuck in such a bad situation if you would have opened your eyes and seen the red flags, if you would have left at the first signs of trouble, if you would have been smarter about your decision making. But beating yourself up over the past isn’t going to help you. And, truthfully, it’s not your fault this happened to you.

No, you’re not perfect. You’ve made your own mistakes. There were probably times when you were so angry with your person that you stooped to their level, that you did things you weren’t proud of doing, that you went against your own morals.

But you need to remember this: No matter what mistakes you have made, you didn’t deserve what a toxic person did to you. You didn’t deserve to be treated like a nobody, or like a piece of meat, or like a useless piece of garbage. You didn’t deserve to be treated poorly by the one person who was supposed to have your back, who you were supposed to be able to talk to about anything, who was supposed to be on your side.

You didn’t deserve to go through hell. You didn’t deserve to have your confidence shattered along with your heart. You didn’t deserve to feel like second best, like not even your own person gave a shit about what happened to you. You didn’t deserve this kind of pain. You didn’t deserve what they did to you.

Even though you could have left earlier or turned them down in the first place, you can’t blame yourself for what you went through. You can’t start believing it was your own fault because you’re weak or because you’re stupid or because you aren’t pretty enough or successful enough or exciting enough to find someone who treats you right.

The reason you went through this has nothing to do with you. It has to do with them. You went through this because you happened to fall for someone manipulative, someone selfish, someone who was perfectly fine with hurting the heart who loved them the most.

When you leave a toxic situation, it’s healthy to take a step back and reflect on what happened. It’s healthy to be self-aware enough to admit you made mistakes, too. But you can’t fool yourself into believing those mistakes mean you deserved to be abused. You didn’t deserve to be treated like shit. You didn’t deserve any of it.

Now that your toxic relationship has come to an end, you’re going to have a lot of regrets. You’re going to wish you did certain things differently. You’re going to wish you got rid of this person sooner. But you can’t dwell on the past — and even if you do, you have to remember one thing. You did not deserve what happened to you. 

You only deserve love. You deserve respect. You deserve to be treated as an equal. Thought Catalog Logo Mark

Holly is the author of Severe(d): A Creepy Poetry Collection.

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