We are often told only fools rush into love. Love can be measured by how you treat a flower. When you love a flower, it lives as an extension of you. When you like a flower, you just pick it for yourself. Well, damn, I sure wish I was told that as a teenager back in high school. My younger self would have loved the advice I would have given if time travel was possible. There, indeed, existed a time when I was very naive when it came to building romantic relationships. Honestly, My 9th-grade self thought love was all about just caring about each other and having a lot of sex. When in reality, much more goes into a relationship between two people. But of course, two young dumbasses are not gonna know that, especially if one partner comes from an unhealthy household. This is the story of a traumatic relationship and how it was able to shape me into the person I am today.

As a kid, I never had a clear image of what real love is. For instance, my brother suffered a lot for some girl who did not want him, and I grew up watching that. I grew up watching him suffer and shed tears for a lost cause. It got to the point where he deliberately drunk and drove in a suicide attempt because the girl was “the cherry on top”. As for my parents and what should be the prime example of what real love is to a child, it wasn’t. From a young age, I caught on that they just coexist simply because they felt it was too much work to separate. Residue from their past toxic relationship spilled over into their parenting. Leaving my brother and me to navigate and discover our own definition of genuine romantic love.

Now, this subconscious mindset had manifested itself in my relationships, according to a drug addict by the name of Sigmund Freud. Psychology Joke. Anyway, Yes, it is valid to a certain extent. In 9th grade, I got into a relationship with a person; Let’s call her E. E at first was a very kind person, full of laughter and jokes. I recall us meeting through a mutual friend during regent exam season. From that moment on, we spend the following summer getting to know each other and creating memories. However, I was still involved in my previous relationship due to no closure, and E knew this. I eventually gave in. She insisted she and I could work something out because I “treated her so well” and “no one has ever treated her like this.” And Indeed, there was truth to her word.

As she opened up more about her life and let me in, it became apparent something was off. As our relationship progressed, she began having episodes of total disregard for me as a partner and ultimately “taking breaks”. She often became irritable towards her friends who cared about her the most and me. One moment she is giving me all her love and affection, than the next she downright disregards my feelings. It was like being on a see-saw dating this bitch.

She eventually let me into her household, where I got to meet her mother and stepfather as well as her siblings. At first, her parents seemed like decent people but one day something caught me by surprise. As I was relaxing in the living room with E, E’s mother came home as usual. She settles down and goes to the kitchen to grab a glass of water. When all of a sudden, this woman starts screaming at the top of her lungs. “E! You fucking did not do the dishes! You live under my house. You do as I say I am your mother.” I was completely taken back. She completely shuts her down for not doing the dishes when she came home. I personally had never heard such disrespect come out of a person, especially a mother talking to her child. It became clear to me she had been verbally and emotionally abused. And since she was being abused, she had to redirect her frustration, which was me.

For about a year and some change, I endured a constant cycle of breaking up and getting back just because E needed a “break” to recollect herself. Her idea of a break was to mess around with other guys and deny it when confronted. There were constant arguments about me telling her how her actions made me feel and her just completely ignoring my point. She would flip the blame on me because I would decide to find interest in other people during our breaks. I mean, what else was I supposed to do if every time we broke up, she made it seem like the final time. There was continuously reaching out and apologizing from her end, and being the naive kid, I forgave. Until I forgave no more. 

The final straw was around October 2018 when I found out yet again she messed around with a boy from our school (the person told me himself.) I decided to break up with her for the final time to spare my own sanity and health because she was obviously not good for me. It was the first step of emotional freedom and self-healing, as Jada Smith roughly puts it. However, E did not take this well. For the following couple of months, it seemed to anger E in a way that messed with her ego. It is almost as if she had two sides to her; the vulnerable side and the ego-inflated side. She would try to intimate my friends and the girl I was interested in by giving empty threats in the form of texts or verbally. She would speak ill of me to her friends in an effort to degrade me somehow. However, her friends knew my character and began to disassociate with her, which fuels her deteriorating mental health.

Having gone through this saga, I have amassed much self-knowledge and self-awareness. Although a little traumatized, it made me realize that each human has their experience and their own faults. There will always be a cyclical nature of trauma that will be passed down from generation to generation. I saw it within my own family and with my former significant others. Trauma will be passed down. However, one can manage to break the cycle of trauma if one would just take the time to heal. The hurt and pain inflicted on you should not be imposed on others. Every human experience comes with its tribulations but should not be the foundation of your experience. 

It took a long time to become aware of that. I was the type of person to want to help others with their own problems and ignore my own. I forgot my own sanity in pursuing what I perceived as true love. However, I found what was truly important in one suffering from emotional abuse and is recovering. Forgiving yourself. 

Forgiving yourself is the first step towards self-love. I realize that some people live with a level of guilt. The guilt of being not good enough and the reaction to this guilt is displayed outwards toward the world. Forgiving yourself could eliminate this guilt and possibly end the cycle of hurting others. This experience served as a warning and a wake-up call to choose wisely in every aspect of my life.