Survivor Story #5

This isn’t the story of an abusive relationship, not in the traditional sense anyway. You see, it wasn’t the guy who was abusing me in my relationship, it was me. I was the one who emotionally and mentally abused myself. While the guy did horrible things to me that I just can’t seem to get over. Ultimately, I feel that I am the one to blame for the abuse I felt. Just hear me out.

I met him, let’s call him Jay, at the beginning of my freshman year. We started dating after only a month at my new university. That was my first mistake. I should have never dated anyone so soon. Dating someone so soon into my first year at school closed me off to meeting new people and trying new experiences because all I wanted to do was lay up in bed all day with my new boo. However, that first year was pretty great. To me he was perfect. Somedays I would just look at him while he was watching Netflix or playing on his phone and tears would begin to collect behind my eyes because I was just so amazed that he existed and wanted to be with me. After about 6 months, I told him I loved him and that he didn’t have to say it back, but he did. Later he told me that he lied. Sophomore year with him began to feel more like a routine than the whirlwind romance that I had felt the year before.

Little things annoyed me, like the fact that he stayed out until 4 in the morning to do “hoodrat shit” and then sleep until 2 in the afternoon in my bed. I loved him, so I swallowed my annoyance, but I should have expressed my anger. That was my second mistake. I never told him when he did things that bugged me because I didn’t want to make him upset, but that never resolved anything so resentment boiled. The summer between sophomore and junior year was when I started to notice the distance. I would ask him to find out when he was off work so I could visit him a couple of times during the summer and I had to nag him when he should have been excited for the visit. That was the first sign of the end.

Then Junior year came and we both signed up for move-in crew to help freshman move-in so we could move in early. Things seemed fine then, but once our friends started to move-in things became strained between us. First, he deleted all of the pics of us off his Facebook and when I asked why he said he just didn’t like how he looked in them. I let it go because he is a picky guy when it comes to photos of himself anyway. Second, he stopped talking to me as much when I came over. Third, I slept over one night and then left in the morning before he woke up and he didn’t care that I was gone. When I tried to confront him about it he said we needed to talk. That’s when he told me he needed a break, which I disagreed with because breaks are like prison to me, but I allowed it because I thought that giving him space would help. While I spent two weeks writing letters to him that he would never read and driving myself crazy trying to figure out how to fix our relationship, he was out having fun with our friends. (Oh yeah, that was another one of my mistakes. I introduced him to my friends and they liked him so much that my friends soon became his friends.) We kept making times to meet up and talk about our issues, but each time he gave me an excuse why he couldn’t meet me.

Finally, I was fed up. I cornered him in his room (not cool on my part) and made him tell me what was going on. He gave me excuse after excuse about why we weren’t working, but each excuse was always on my part. I didn’t even give him any of my own reasons why we weren’t working, It was clear to me that he didn’t want to be in the relationship anymore but he was too afraid to end it so I did. I cried for weeks afterwards. It wasn’t what I wanted, but I was sick of being trapped in the break. While I cried and tried to pick up the pieces myself (my friends chose his side instead of staying neutral) he burned every memory of us together. He unfollowed and unfriended me from every social media site. He joined Tinder only a few days after our break up. It was clear that he moved on very quickly.

Me? I am still trying to move on. I was at a bar just this past weekend (8 months after our breakup) and a super hot guy came up to me and we talked for a while. Toward the end of the night he sensed my hesitation with him and immediately knew it was from a horrible long-term relationship. It seems like I will never shake the effects of that relationship and as a result I am 21 and have already given up on love. My advice to others out there, don’t be like me. Your significant other should never be your whole world. Don’t sabotage your ultimate happiness for the happiness of another. Don’t be your own abuser.