Thoughts & Opinions: A destructive relationship

The entirety of our relationship was a painful, destructive catastrophe in which I came out crumbling and crying and you came out of it "changed for the better" because, as you claimed, I made you a better person.

The reality of it was I gave you the parts of me that I loved. I gave and I gave, and the more I gave, the more you demanded. You called it love. You told me you adored everything I was, and maybe for a time you did, but you loved in the way that was simply a concentrated form of envy. You took the best bits of me for yourself and you left me with the unstable, trembling remains that were not worth your time nor pity. I gave you all the best of me and foolishly asked for you help in holding me together when I ignored the fact that the reason I had fallen apart was because you were ripping away at my foundations the entire time.

I was bright. Shining. This gleaming, loving being, with much to offer the world and a sense of purpose in myself. Circumstances had made me lose the sheer innocence yet I still desperately clung to the possibility that maybe a sense of good could be found deep within any individual, if you only tried hard enough to unearth it. I was hopeful, if a bit jaded by the world. I yearned to polish the world to a sparkling glimmer of contentment.

You saw that in me, you saw the best parts of me. You goaded and encouraged all of my hidden facets out... For a time.

You kissed me and painted pictures in my head of a world where we were together and no amount of atrocity could dampen our bliss.

You made me believe that I was on a pedestal of your own making while you knew I built a throne for you beyond what I thought was love.

You criticized and critiqued every quirk and aspect that you once publicly adored. You ignored me and then reprimanded me for questioning why the nature of your affections had morphed and changed and seemed to be rotting away.

You placed all the blame on my shoulders for my own unhappiness in addition to your internal misery which manifested itself in insults and arguments of which I was the sole target.

You had me convinced that this was all true love, so I poured what was left of my willpower and sense of autonomy into fixing what you claimed I had broken.

You would never confide any detail of your life in me while secrets were not in existence in my universe which revolved around your every whim. You ran around, you felt guilty in doing things yet you did them anyway and you rationalized every last detail. You called me immature while you continued your tantrums of a child. I trusted you all the while.

You pushed me beyond my limits and I was blind to the reality that I was far past my own sanity. I had forgotten who I was. You convinced me I was not worth love - the love of anyone else in the world, or the love of myself. I believed there were no reasons for me to love myself anymore. You put the worthless label on me and I clung to you as my own hope for salvation in the horrible, dreaded world.

I fought. Of course I fought myself. Not in the disagreement and argument type of conflict, not even in the struggling to overcome an obstacle type of fight. I hated myself, loathing beyond compare. This was the type of fight in which I entered it intending to end in finality the parts of myself that were so disgusting to both you and me.

Of course it hurt to fight myself. I screamed and cried and sometimes broke down and attempted to understand why you acted as if you hated me so. I tried to understand why I hated myself so when I had not always been in that state.

I needed help. You refused to provide any such assistance.

I left you, and in leaving you, I won the battle ultimately. The battlegrounds were barren, scarred, a true wasteland, yet for the first time in a long time I felt a sensation that I thought had long since ceased to exist. I was hopeful.

I was right to hope. Although the fight was my own, I had the help of priceless others who truly loved me and also loved that I wanted to love myself again.

You taught me why storms are named after people. I taught myself how to weather all of it.