When I was in high school, I dated this guy who decided I was worthless. He showed me in ways that changed my life for the better.

"I love you so much."
"I hate actually talking to you."
"Wanna go to the movies?"
"You didn't check the times. You had one fucking job."
"I'm sorry you screwed up again, sweetheart."

It was the best thing to ever happen to me and absolutely the worst. I was never an extremely confident individual until my freshman year of college when I outgrew that loser. (Yes, he still tweets about me four years later.) He consumed my life in a way that is too easy to fall victim to. I latched onto this guy who tore down his own friends, and I thought that I would be different to him. I would be the one who changed him, who made him want to better himself. Instead, I tread deeper and deeper into the chasm of his darkness until one day, I found myself in the midst of my second emotional breakdown. I was absolutely worthless. He reassured me every day that I was high maintenance and stubborn because I asked him to buy me a Blast from Sonic or food from Taco Bell.

When he became financially dependent on me, that was when I was at my lowest. He needed me--I was his lifeline. I found myself unable to look into a mirror because I wasn't worthy to see an actual person looking back at me. I was only a hollow shell of a person.

I remember being a freshman in college, my only chance of getting away from him, and seeing a lone star in the darkness of this wallowing pit. My first college friend became a shooting star in my midnight sky. He soon opened up my world to so many other people who were confident and who never made me feel left out. I began forgetting about how worthless I was, and began seeing the horizon from a beautiful sunrise.

It wasn't until one day, towards the end of my freshman year of college that I realized by having this, quite frankly, piece of shit staining my beautiful blue sky, that a gloomy rainstorm was heading my way. Summer was approaching, and I wouldn't have the sanctity of my friends to build me up on the days I felt lower than the earth. As I sat in a chair outside of my freshman math class, a new friend of mine passed me in the hallway, put her hand on my shoulder, and asked, "Camille, why are you crying?" I looked up at her through blurry vision, and felt the tears that were streaming down my face. I ran to the nearest bathroom and found that I could once again look myself square in eye. It had been almost two years, but amidst the puffiness of my red-rimmed eyes, I had become a confident young woman who finally knew what it was like to be loved.

I was no longer worthless.

I am worth more than anything in this precious world, and it took being on my own, away from this vampiric being to realize this. I made friends on my own. I surrounded myself with people who could conquer the world, and for that, I will always be grateful. I have confidence that can never be broken to the point of being invincible. I am young and free and there isn't anyone who can tell me otherwise.

Overcoming worthlessness was hard, I'll admit. There were a lot of phone calls about nervous breakdowns to my new friends. There were too many tears shed that shouldn't have been. I'd experienced severe anxiety to the point of not sleeping or eating for days because I wondered if I was worthy enough. I sat in my room, staring at blank walls because I knew that I couldn't fuck up if I didn't leave my room, right? He did this to me, but it took getting away and putting myself first to figure my life out.I am proud to say I am the person I have always wanted to become, and though I hiked through Hell and back to figure that out, I probably wouldn't change the journey. Because I'm awesome. And so are you.