For the past two and a half years I have been in a relationship. Actually, I’ve been in a relationship ever since I was 16 years old. I couldn’t handle being alone, so I was in relationship after relationship. I poured myself into the other person each time, even at such a young age. The last relationship I had was a really great one, I might add. We were both happy for a significant amount of the relationship. Of course, we had our fights. Some were over small, insignificant things, and others were over really serious issues. I loved him more than I had ever loved anyone else, including myself. I loved him so much that I was willing to break away from the person I was. Any little detail he didn’t like, I changed, but that’s what you’re supposed to do when you love someone, right?

I don’t want to make it seem like he was this evil, manipulative person because he wasn’t. He loved me just as much as I loved him. I was just a weak person that was incapable of standing up for myself for a long time, so he thought it was okay to tell me when something was wrong with me instead of learning to love that particular thing. I wanted his approval so much that it essentially ruined all of the opportunities that I could have made during my first two years of college. I missed out on so many friendships, connections and bonds that I could still be benefitting from to this day. Again, not his fault. At all.

It wasn’t just his approval that I wanted either. It was his family’s approval that I craved as well. His mother, like most mothers, found something “wrong” with me every time I was brought into the picture. Yet again, this lead to a spiral of conformity for myself. Anything he didn’t like, I changed, and everything she didn’t like, I changed it even further. It got to the point to where my own family was concerned about me because they were looking at a person that they didn’t know or someone they had never seen before. However, and I cannot emphasize this enough, it was not his or her fault.

I have spent the last year or so in and out of the counseling center every two weeks, sometimes every single week. My lack of love and self-respect, along with several other personal problems, had been causing severe and frequent panic attacks. Shortly after my initial visit, I was diagnosed with major depression and anxiety. This original diagnosis was the beginning of a very interminable and difficult year. It caused several fights between my partner and I, and somehow his mother was always brought into that fight. If she didn’t like me before, she must’ve hated me after finding out that I was struggling with a serious mental illness. It escalated to the point where she finally said, “I want you to break up with her, but if you do, she’ll probably kill herself.” I know what you’re thinking, “If this girl says, ‘It’s not their fault,’ one more time…,” but it wasn’t. 

The last six months have been a blur. It was six months ago that I decided that I no longer wanted to be in a relationship anymore. For the first time since I was 16, I actually wanted to be alone. Of course, as a person that isn’t used to standing her ground, it took me six months to actually get up the courage to let my partner know that “us” wasn’t something I wanted anymore. Needless to say, he didn’t take it very well, which I can understand because, up until the last six months, I hadn’t shown any signs that our relationship was going to end anytime soon. I would ask myself: Can I keep doing this if it means that he will be happy but I won’t? If I pretend to be happy long enough, will it eventually happen? A lot of people are in relationships that they’re not happy in, right? 

About a month ago and a half ago, I did something that I was absolutely terrified of doing for such a long time. I told my partner that I wanted to take a short break. That “break” was, in fact, short, as it only lasted 18 hours. During those 18 hours, I thought I was going to lose my mind. I think I had a breakdown during 17 of those hours. The thought of actually being alone, really alone, was eating away at me. I had decided that this relationship was something I wanted because of how strongly I felt about not wanting to be alone during such a short period of time. Unfortunately for him, the feeling of regret came on strong, so I initiated yet another break. This one lasted a month.

I don’t exactly remember how it ended, but I do remember that month that I was “alone.” At first, it was really hard, because I hadn’t been on my own for almost five years. However, each day got a little easier. I was starting to make friends again and I was able to join a few on-campus organizations. I gained a little of my seemingly lost confidence back. Like I’ve said before, it was not his fault or his mother’s fault or anyone else’s fault; It was my own. I could’ve achieved all of these things while still remaining in a relationship, I just chose not to. I decided that all of my extra time was going to be devoted to making sure that my significant other was happy and that I was always on his “good” side, even though the relationship wasn’t fulfilling for either one of us. 

Too many young people in relationships do exactly what I did. They force themselves to be something that they’re not, and sacrifice their own happiness for the other person. This is extremely unhealthy in so many different ways. You never really realize how much you miss out on until you’re out of a bad situation. However, love makes you do things that you would have never even considered. Like the great Beyoncé once said, “I’m a human being and I fall in love and sometimes I don’t have control of every situation”— so, even Queen Bey understands. However, it is so important to love yourself before attempting to love another person. You can’t really commit to another person and love everything about said person until you can fully recite what you love about yourself. So, even though Beyoncé knows that love makes you crazy, she also knows, “Your self-worth is determined by you. You don’t have to depend on someone telling you who you are.”