At the tender age of fifteen, I fell in love for the first time … so deeply that I lost myself completely.
I ate, breathed and lived for my boyfriend, who was a year older than me. To say this relationship was extremely toxic was putting it mildly.
I had just moved to Northern CA with my family when my dad got a job transfer. While I was broken-hearted to leave my friends in Florida, part of me was excited about making a fresh start somewhere new.
However, beginning over as a freshman at a school where all the kids had known one another most of their lives was hardcore. Upon returning home after my first day, I cried to my mom, “No one really talked to me. It was so awkward. I wish we had never moved.”
Within a few months, I had made a few friends and was starting to feel more comfortable in my new surroundings.
That’s when fate intervened.
I spotted Jimmy in the parking lot with his best friend one day. There was something about him that immediately captured my eye. He was tall and handsome with the sweetest smile I had ever seen. I had to meet him.
After a brief introduction through a mutual friend, Jimmy and I exchanged numbers and the rest was history, much to my parent’s horror.
He came from a working-class family and lived in a modest home on the other side of town. While my parents found his parents to be dull and lacking in style, I thought they were warm and caring.
The more my parents tried to keep me away from Jimmy, the harder I fought with them to give me my own space. It was a battle they wouldn’t win for a very long time.
For me, the sun rose and set around this guy. If he said the word “jump”, I answered, “how high?” I would do anything for him ... and I did.
After a few months of dating, he convinced me that if I didn’t sleep with him, he’d get back together with his ex-girlfriend, who still came around from time to time to stare daggers at me.
I felt I had no choice ... I whole-heartedly believed I couldn’t live without him.
I was young and naive. And I fully presumed that I wasn’t capable of being loved. After all, being raised by two people who were completely dysfunctional on their own and too wrapped up in their own little world left me feeling alone and unsure of what real love felt like.
To me, love was proving that you were worthy of someone’s attention. Love was selfish, conditional and binding. Love was meant to be betrayed. Instead of making you feel joyous and happy, love made you feel ugly and bitter.
Any time I felt Jimmy slipping away from me, I would do something desperate to keep his attention. I wasn’t above threatening to take my own life...or make him feel as if his life would be completely empty without me in it.
He betrayed my trust plenty of times by sleeping with other girls behind my back ... although sometimes he was happy to flaunt it right in front of me. Instead of seeing him for what he truly was, I clung to him even tighter ... begging him to stay with me, even though we both knew we were tragically wrong for one another.
I allowed him to abuse me, physically, emotionally and verbally. I use the word “allowed” because I could’ve walked away at any time ... I could’ve told somebody and gotten help. But I was scared and ashamed.
Essentially, I believed I deserved to be treated in such a poor manner.
