When I started dating a new guy, things were going great. He made me smile, he made me feel protected from the harsh realities this world could hold. We quickly became joined at the hip. A few months into the relationship is when things started changing.

We were cruising down the highway in his parent's car. There seemed to be a dark cloud over his head, as I was going home earlier than he had wanted. I tried making cheerful remarks, but I was met with silence. I started wondering if I had done something wrong when I noticed the vehicle picking up speed. The needle climbed, reaching ninety miles an hour in a sixty mile an hour zone. I started panicking, asking him to slow down. The vehicle started to swerve to the right, threatening to go into the ditch. My knuckles went white while I gripped the arm of the seat. Just as soon as it had started, it ended. Maybe my panicky pleas had something to do with it. He pulled over and cried, asking for my forgiveness.

I should have seen the red flag then, I should have left. But I didn't. I wanted to forgive him because I loved him. I wanted to forget because I needed him.

These incidents started occurring more frequently. I started walking on thin ice, afraid that anything I had said would set him off. I never knew what he was going to do next. All it took was one wrong word. I should have known, I should have left. But I didn't. When it rained it poured, but when that beautiful sun shone it's like I forgot all about it. As our relationship crept toward the one year mark, things became worse. Holes in the walls were like tick marks, documenting every time I cried. Shattered glass scattered the floor when I would complain. I uncovered lies and listened to the dead end of a phone like it was a daily routine.

He never had to touch me to plant the fear in my heart.

I felt like I was constantly on a roller coaster, never knowing where things would turn. I became desensitized to his rants, to him taking off out the front door to not return for an hour. He would disappear after a fight, waiting for me to find him drunk and apologetic hours later. I constantly took up for him, assuring everyone that It's not like what it seems. I would get text messages and dms from people who said he owed large amounts of money.I started working more hours to help him pay the bills he had acquired.

I felt trapped. I stopped sleeping, my grades dropped, and my self-esteem was an all time low. I felt like I could never keep up. I wish someone would have known, I wish I would have left sooner, but I didn't. I found my once happy and bubbly self-gone. In her place was a woman who had lost her voice. A woman who needed depression medicine and a counselor visit twice a week to get out of bed. He had drained every ounce.

We broke up on and off, until one March day I had reached my end. It had been going on a few months of being without a job, a car, and most of his friends and family's support. His moods were at an all time low. If you ask me what I had done to make him so angry this particular evening, I couldn't tell you because It was so insignificant. He had thrown his third phone of the year on the floor, shattering the glass. Yelling so loud I could not think straight. He stormed away and I followed trying to reason with him. I reached the rooms opening when the moment froze. His fist grazed inches from my face, putting a dent in the door frame I was leaned against. My heart skipped, and it's like for the first time I could finally see what had been going on.

You can't fix people. You can't change someone who does not want to change. You may love them, but that doesn't make them a good person. You may not have a busted lip or a broken bone, but that doesn't mean there aren't wounds in your soul. They don't have to slap you or hurt you to damage your heart. Being afraid of your significant other is not normal. Not being able to freely speak to your significant other is not normal. Stop making excuses for invalidated anger and lies. Stop pretending that it's standard to have a new hole in the wall; to be replacing something every other week. You deserve more. You don't have to waste years of your life pretending its better than it is.

I plead that you open your eyes to see the truth of your reality. Someone is out there who will open your eyes to real love. You have the strength to wake up and change your future. You will live without someone you thought you couldn't go a day without, and it will be okay.