Life is a rollercoaster so I think it's best for me to start from the beginning. Right now I'm almost 21. When I was born, I was born with this thing called cognitive spinal abnormality or CSA. It's basically a fancy term for saying I can't walk. Life has never been easy for me but it has definitely been worth it. But oddly enough, my story has nothing to do with my disability. When I was about 13, I was utterly in love with this guy that my cousin was dating. For privacy reasons were going to call him Tom. Tom is a smooth talker and can be very deceiving. Knowing that he was my cousin's boyfriend I knew that I couldn't persuade him. Him and I were best friends for two years before we started dating. My world for 6 years was Tom. I grew into the person Tom wanted me to be. I'm not saying Tom is a bad person. I'm saying we were both kids at this time and he was only a year older than me. After my cousin and Tom broke up, Tom and I started dating. We dated for 4 years and I can promise you it was one of the most dysfunctional relationships that I have ever been in or could ever be in. He was a liar. I have no beef towards time because like I said we were both kids during this and we have both matured a lot throughout the years. We were glued to each other for 3 years straight. It was so unhealthy and regardless of what anybody told me I refused to listen. It got to the point where when I was with Tom, everything he did made me mad. When I wasn't with Tom, it was like I was a sad lost puppy. I couldn't win either way. This relationship was abusive to an extent. Emotionally abusive. We were both such toxic people in each other's lives but we were too young to realize that until a couple years ago. Him and I had plans to get married and have children together. We had our retirement planned out, we were going to homeschool our kids and live in an RV to travel around the world. That dream lasted for about 2 years. For the first two years of our relationship, he was the best boyfriend I could have ever asked for. Tom was so sweet to me and treated me like a princess. In 2016, that's where everything began to fall apart. April 22nd 2016, I was sexually assaulted by one of my cousin's boyfriend's. Side note: they aren't together anymore. This guy who sexually assaulted me, we're going to call him Billy. Billy was such a manipulative, narcissistic, abusive scumbag. I have never met anybody in my entire life that can make you believe anything like Billy did. My cousin was wrapped around his finger. Billy had her under his complete and total control. He had everything set up to make it look like what he did to me was consensual. He ended up getting arrested for a previous crime in early May of 2016. The night he got arrested is when my cousin found out that he "cheated" on her with me. I had so much evidence stacked up against me and he always told me that if I ever told anybody what would happen, he would do to my cousin what he did to me. So I kept his little secret no matter how bad it killed me inside. My cousin was very very hurt and borderline hated me. I knew she would tell Tom so I told Tom that I cheated on him with Billy. I was so afraid nobody would believe me. Tom didn't break up with me over this. We were still together. For 9 months I had only two people in my life. this was the darkest time I had ever been through. over the years Tom and I had been glued to each other's hips so when he started becoming distant, that's when things got worse for me. Remember, I was 18 at the time and I was fully convinced that I couldn't get through anything without Tom. He basically abandoned me during this time. I hold nothing against him because I told him I cheated on him. Tom did what any normal human being would do. As I was dying everyday inside, as everything felt so dark and hopeless, I managed to get out on my own. I had to be strong for myself. Yes, I had my two best friends helping me through it. One of them was pregnant at the time and the other one had a full-time job so they couldn't always be there for me. I had to be supportive for myself. If it wasn't for Billy doing what he did to me and Tom distancing himself, there would have been no way I could have gotten through Tom and I's break up. Like always, things did start to get better, but Tom was still very distant. During the last three months of our relationship, I saw him maybe twice and talked to him once every week. I didn't need him anymore to live, I found the strength to do that for myself when he abandoned me the time I needed him the most. He did find out the truth but he still remained distant. I remember lying to people and telling them that Tom had felt so bad for not believing me. Tom really didn't care, he didn't talk much about it. When I told him the truth, he shrugged it off like it was nothing. I think that moment in my life was what crushed me the most. Yeah I had gone through being assaulted and I've gone through so many more hardships before that, but having the one person in your life who you thought cared about you more than anything, shrugs off something that basically killed you inside is the worst pain possible. I loved Tom with everything I had. Even after that. I realized though in that moment, Tom wasn't the same person who I fell in love with years ago. At this point, the relationship became extremely toxic. Morso on his end. Yes I still loved him, but I knew at this point deep down I was probably better off without him. I just kept reminding myself of who Tom could be when he wanted to be sweet to me. The thought of living without Tom, made me feel sick inside. Tom was my everything. That wasn't fair to Tom though for him to be my everything. I would still be with Tom to this day if he had not broken up with me. This was my first break up and the first week was so painful. It felt like every bone, every muscle, every atom inside of me had exploded or broken. I knew though if I hadn't have gone through what I went through with Billy, there would have been no way I could have made it through the break up with Tom. If Tom had not broken up with me, I wouldn't have met my first biggest mistake, for privacy issues let's call him, Robert. I met Robert in May 2018. Robert was my second boyfriend. This guy had a gold tongue. He was such a smooth talker and told me everything I wanted to hear at the right time. I was head over heels for Robert. Inside I knew better, I had only known him for 2 weeks when I told him that I loved him. Robert and I dated for a little over a month. He lives an hour away from me so I only got to see him on the weekends. I thought this was going to be a good thing because this way I wouldn't be as attached to him as I was with Tom. I couldn't have been more wrong. I had all the warning signs and I blew through them all. Robert was 7 years older than me and he had already been married twice. I'm a big believer in everybody is good inside it just takes the right person to find the good in that person. Robert played me like a violin from day one. He manipulated me into believing that all of my friends took advantage of me. If there was ever a problem in our relationship and I would try to discuss it with him, he would sit there and act like a little child because he was afraid of confrontation. Even though he always told me I was the immature one. Just thinking of Robert makes my blood boil. Robert was mentally abusive. He told me once that I was no longer attractive to him and that he was finding other girls attractive. At first when he told me this I was crushed, but then I became very angry. I'm your girlfriend. If you're not attracted to me anymore, work on becoming attracted to me. I still looked the same way from day one when we first met. How can it be that you talked about how attractive you are to me for the first 3 weeks of our relationship and now all the sudden you're not? I lost my cool and blew up on him. I felt like I was going crazy during this relationship. If he made me mad, it was no big deal, but if I made him mad, it was the end of the world. I started to believe that there was something wrong with me. There wasn't anything wrong with me, it was all him. Robert did teach me some things though. He was really into self-help books which inspired me to become involved with him as well. There was one book that I read that really threw everything in perspective for me. This book basically open my eyes to who I really am. Like every girl, I am a daimond. I am valuable and I deserve to be loved and treated with respect. The book is called Why Men Love Bitches by Sherry Argov. Robert bought this book for me and it bit him in the ass. He thought that the book was about women sticking up for themselves in a world full of haters. Yes, it is about that, but what he didn't know was that it taught me to not take crap from men including him. Now while I was reading this book, I was still with him. Our relationship started to get rocky as I was reading it because I started seeing things and I didn't put up with his crap. On the last day that we hung out as a couple, I could feel the breakup coming. Robert being the coward that he is, broke up with me through text when he got home that night. I was sad, I cried for a couple of days because I was fully convinced that I would never find somebody like him again and I was right. I wouldn't want to find somebody like him again. We decided to try and be friends and that lasted for about a week. During this week he flirted with me a lot. This had my hopes up that maybe we could get back together. When Saturday came we hung out as usual and we had a lot of fun. We went to a park and walked a couple of trails and then we went out to one of our favorite restaurants. He kissed my cheek on one of the trails and then he told me that he had regretted breaking up with me. Before he left he kissed my cheek again, he told me not to move on because he wanted to get back with me, and texted me before he left my driveway that he missed me. Sunday we hung out again and it was pretty fun, he kissed my cheek and when he went home everything was fine. It wasn't until Monday that he texted me cursing about how I am an annoying 20 year old that needs to leave him alone because he already found somebody else that he had been talking to for about a week. This scumbag, played me so hard and at that point I had enough and I decided to block him. If it wasn't for Robert, I wouldn't have the self-confidence that I have right now. I know I am beautiful and I can honestly say that I love myself. I am the best I have ever been in a very long time. If it wasn't for my ex's, I don't think I would be the strong. It doesn't matter what you're going through, what matters is, is that you see that there is a light at the end of that tunnel. Your world spun before your partner and your world will continue to spin after your partner. It may not seem like it now, but there is a purpose for what you are going through or dealing with. I just hope that you stick through it to see the beauty in it.