Whenever I am upset or have something important to say that I don't know how to say alone, I write a letter. This letter in particular was written just a couple of months ago, with the purpose of explaining to my parents what I had been struggling with over the past year. I recently looked over what I had written, something that was typed not that long ago, and it's amazing to see how much progress can be made by just telling the truth. The past couple of months after sharing my letter have been so meaningful to me and made me realize that it's possible to come back from something like this not as a "survivor" or "victim," but as yourself. I no longer feel overwhelmed by what occurred in the past, and feel strong enough to tell my story without fear of judgment or falling back into the unhealthy. Though what occurred was significant and mattered, I no longer feel like it dominates my reactions to anxiety charged situations. This place of "normalcy" was one I wasn't ever sure I would reach, and though I do have triggers that come up once in a while, I feel ready to handle myself with a sense of grace and acceptance. This letter was a major milestone for me, and I hope that by sharing what I wrote I can help others. Especially those who feel that their experience is invalidated by age— realize that there is maturity and power in taking charge of your story.

It's possible to come back from something like this not as a "survivor" or "victim," but as yourself.

Dear Family and Friends,

There are so many things I want to say, but these things are messy. There are things that some of you know about, things some of you will be hearing for the first time, and things that I have mentioned casually to relieve them of their true implications. I live a very happy and productive life, one where I am eager to connect with others and always have something to look forward to. I have never been depressed and am thankful for that, but I have been anxious. One of my most crowning achievements was learning to diffuse my anxiety. This was something I did by myself and for myself. Something I worked so hard for and never gave up on, even when I was telling myself that “this was my life now” and I “had to accept it.” I can now say I am 90-95% anxiety-free and am so thankful for all of the support and help I received in making this possible. I feel the need to share the cause of my anxiety, as the cause is something I am still working through today. I didn’t start telling anyone until recently that I was still affected by the cause of my anxiety, as I was worried what people would think of me and refused to acknowledge, even myself, what was going on out of shame inside me. This is a very scary thing for me to do, but I am glad that I am taking this step. And I hope that by doing so, I can offer some perspective on my overly sensitive behavior from the last year.

Dating James was one of the best and worst things that has ever happened to me. At the beginning of our relationship, I was so happy to be with someone who not only adored me but showed me in every way that I was the thing that made him feel safe and wanted. It was exciting to feel all of these unique and personal emotions for the first time, and to share those things with another human being was an absolute privilege. I will never forget the wonderful times we had together, and though I appreciate everything good that occured, these times are the ones that confuse and hurt me the most. This is because I ingrained this overromanticized version of who he was into my brain, which makes it harder for me to understand how someone so loving could ever abuse me. You may cringe at the word “abuse” because how could a seventeen-year-old girl who has only been in one relationship understand such an adult thing? I struggled with this concept as well, and it is still something I fail to understand, as I don’t want to blow things out of proportion and become a falsified “martyr” in your eyes. It wasn’t until six months into seeing the school counselor every other week that I began talking about what happened. And once I did, I felt like my anxiety practically vanished overnight. I was beginning to acknowledge what was making me feel this way, instead of running away so no one would see me as a “drama queen.” That’s when I realized that what happened between me and James wasn’t just a bump in the road, it was an abusive situation that started unfolding before I recognized something was wrong.

How could a seventeen-year-old girl who has only been in one relationship understand such an adult thing?

Discluding the magical beginning of our relationship, where I was “love bombed” and constantly reminded of how much I meant to him, I suffered through incredible amounts of emotional manipulation and abuse during our time together and after we had broken up. Most commonly, I was manipulated through gaslighting about mental illness, sudden bursts of yelling and rudeness, wrongfully being blamed for things outside of my control, suffocating dependency, negligence to establish dominance, and dramatic mood swings that kept me in a state of unknowing, fear, and control. These behaviors forced me to divulge information that I was uncomfortable with, caused me to do something sexual that I was not prepared to do, and put me under incredible amounts of pressure to fix a family that had suffered through bouts of physical violence and mental illness. When I was neglected, screamed at, told that it was all my fault, and guilted into making decisions concerning custody and therapy, I began to feel like I deserved the negativity I was receiving, which caused me to dismiss all unhealthy behaviors I experienced. I was taxed with keeping someone alive who wanted so desperately to die, and it consumed my every action, thought, and feeling. His mom wasn’t doing anything to help him (texting me things about how if I didn’t send her information, he would hurt himself; asking for updates on how he was acting at school etc.). Teachers and students were asking me why he stopped showing up to school and if I could help in any way. And his sister was worried sick and needed support, making it my job to advocate for James even though he was using his illness as an excuse to violate me.

I was taxed with keeping someone alive who wanted so desperately to die, and it consumed my every action, thought, and feeling.

My happiness depended on if he was in a good mood or bad mood, which made me increasingly nervous, as I was never sure which “person” I would receive. And it killed me when he would be perfectly fine around others, then turn around and make me feel like I couldn’t trust my instincts, or that I didn’t deserve to be happy. I asked James and his family multiple times to please stop, attempted to converse about and put up healthy boundaries, and did all that I could to make him feel loved so he wouldn’t kill himself. He took a lot of my encouragements, offers to talk if needed, other supportive actions, and twisted them, which led me to think my efforts were selfish and oppressive. The worst part was that I became so desperate that my feelings for him grew and made me feel more connected to him. I now know this is called trauma bonding— the way he made me feel for him more with the hope that I might get a rare apology, hug, or reward for sticking around. I thought this was just a depressive phase, and I freshened the perfect version of him in my brain constantly so that I would be ready when he “forgave me for all the hurt I had caused.” He had been so good to me in the past, and I refused to hold him accountable because I thought his depression was the only thing manipulating his behaviors. I now know that how James treated me was not a side effect of his condition and that he made the conscious decision, whatever the intent, to hurt me.

I asked for a break after a horrible phone call that resulted in a panic attack, and we broke up two weeks later under the pretense of staying friends. I was just so happy that we were ok, and put all that occurred behind me because, at the time, his friendship and opinion of me were all that mattered. But after going on a class trip, he texted asking to see me, claiming that he missed me and that we needed to talk. We met up, and nothing productive was accomplished. Instead, he opened up the hole inside of myself that I thought I had closed. I began to feel anxious all the time, never catching a break from the constant pressure on my chest and fluttering in my throat, to the point where I would have to leave class just to run cold water under my wrists. My happiness still depended on his, and he made it very clear through public embarrassment, random spurts of anger directed at me, and charming conversations, that he still had control over me. I was in an active state of fear, which contributed greatly to my anxiety because I was still so scared for James, who was quickly falling apart. I was unsure of how to process what occurred in our relationship, embarrassed and angry at myself for getting involved in this situation, anxious that I was no longer in a position to be of any help, and nervous that he would do something to keep me in the cycle of abuse (which he did quite often, leading me to be hyper-aware of my actions and his behavior).

Instead, he opened up the hole inside of myself that I thought I had closed.

I turned into someone I despised: someone who frantically wondered if he was at his mom or dad’s house, someone who did things just to snag his attention, and someone who rolled with whatever hateful or loving thing he threw at me, constantly apologizing for things I hadn’t even been a part of so I could avoid his anger or avoid pushing him deeper into his depressive state. I tried so hard to shrug off what was going on and became very wary of talking about what was truly occurring. To be fair, I complained and showed my emotions, but did so in a way where no one would know the depth of the situation and how it was affecting me. I was ashamed and didn’t think I would be taken seriously because it was “just the end of a high school relationship.” Even I didn’t understand what was going on as I refused to hold him accountable. I was made to believe I was weak and incapable of having an identity separated from his, which pushed me to try and move on without fully processing the situation. During this time, I still cared for him and was still frightened he would die. He stopped showing up to school, had multiple anxiety attacks in his classes, started wearing sweatpants, grew his hair out, lost weight, and stopped wearing his glasses. This was incredibly hard for me to watch, and it made me more compliant when he did something to make me feel uncomfortable or intrigued.

After James left school—I thought this was my fault too—I tried to recover and forget about all that had happened. I felt that what I experienced was invalid and not as serious as it actually was (there are people who have experienced worse, making my situation “not as important”), especially when it came down to my mental health. I lost a lot of self-confidence and was constantly anxious. I became codependent and was constantly putting others problems before my own so I didn’t have to deal with my own issues, causing me to be overly sensitive. I was scared for James, despite the fact that I still missed and was afraid for him. It was incredibly hard for me to sort out how someone that made me feel so good could make me feel so horrible. In order to try and fix myself, every time I felt anxious or started to think about what happened, I would scold myself and invalidate my feelings. This led to bigger bouts of anxiety and fears about mental health, future relationships, and how my friends and family perceived me. These things were constantly murmuring in the back of my mind, leading to a panic attack I had at my work and crying during school about minor comments or anxieties that I felt meant more than they did. I felt like I couldn’t trust myself, as so much of my purpose was trying to keep this family afloat. And now that that purpose was suddenly out of my life, I didn’t know what to do. Despite it being over, I was still so much in it. He attempted to contact me twice during this period, and I saw him often at school events and on the street. I felt like I couldn’t get rid of him. I was sickened that every time I saw him, I wanted to be friends again or felt afraid and nauseous. People would make jokes about how weird our relationship was, how I was too good for him, or how certain situations had played out. These made me incredibly uncomfortable and made me feel like the situation was normalized, like all that occurred was just in my head. I began to feel so ashamed that this was something that still followed me, and I was harsher with myself when I started to feel anxious.

And now that that purpose was suddenly out of my life, I didn’t know what to do. Despite it being over, I was still so much in it.

Eventually, after talking to the school counselor and finally opening up to her about what happened, my anxiety diminished. I realized, with her help, that what occurred was significant and mattered. I now have some closure, a sense of how I have changed for the better, and a deeper understanding of how I function as a human being. I sometimes still have panic dreams, feel anxious about dumb things, and am confused by what happened. But, I have learned to work peacefully with whatever is thrown my way. I am now aware that when thinking back on what happened, I am too hard on myself. And I know I was acting out of compassion and to the best of my abilities. Even if I could go back and change my actions, the outcome would have been the same. I still feel connected to him and wish I didn’t. It’s sad that I feel like one of the only people that would be able to make something of this would be him. I am in no way saying I don’t hold him accountable, but I do believe that this situation was one where we were all just trying to survive. Regardless of the intent of his or his family’s actions, we were all just trying to get through a heartbreaking situation in the only way we knew how. When we dated I caught him at his best, before he dropped, and I saw him at his worst. He often experiences extreme high and low periods, and getting involved with that again would be detrimental for both of us. We can’t take back time, and if we were to try and be friends again, it would not be how it was when we were just becoming friends. We have gone through too much together, and for that reason, I will never try to reconnect with him. Despite the many awful things that happened, I am so thankful that I was able to prove my strength to myself, and that I now get to share with you all what I have discovered. It means the world to me that you all have listened or read this far, and that now you know the truth about something big that altered me as a person. I want to stress how I am in no way attempting to create drama, blow things out of proportion, or make myself out to be a victim. I wish to share this with the people I care about the most, so that I may be fully honest and illuminate how I have moved on and persevered. I am so proud of how far I have come and look forward to being more open and mindful of how I treat myself and my relationships in the future. I love you all so much, and thank you all for listening or reading.