I promised him for better or worse, but I was not prepared when the worst came and stopped us in our tracks. I tried to understand why he’s so stubborn. Why he constantly insisted in pushing me out. What was happening to the man I love?

I knew he was depressed. He had told me about his issues with his depression a couple of weeks after we started dating. He knew that I had some issues with depression and anxiety as well, but I had nothing close to the issues he has struggled with daily for years.

When you’re with someone for a long period of time; your relationship becomes a roller coaster of emotions. The first time I noticed that something was off about him was one night I was staying over. While watching a movie I fell asleep like I always do. But, after working all week from four in the afternoon until three in the morning (since he finally had a weekend off) he was exhausted.

He did fall asleep next to me. He woke up screaming, I tried to get him to talk to me but it was like his mind was in some other state. After probably 15 minutes he finally calmed down. He began to cry, he was shaking and all I could do was hold him. He kissed my hands and whispered to me. “Please, don’t leave… You don’t understand how much I need you.”

That next morning, I tried to talk to him about what had happened. He shook it off. He began building up a wall up that I instantly tore down. He told me he had dreams like that since childhood, he didn’t fully understood what caused them. It was a really bad one, is all that he wanted to say on the topic.

I didn’t expect what happened next to happen.

Around December when I came home from a 10 week stay in South Carolina while my mom was working there, he grew cold. I could sense something was off. But what made it worse is my grandad had passed away the week I moved back home. I was a wreck. Luckily, he was strong enough to be my rock when he knew I couldn’t be his.

I figured that it was the transition of being gone and then coming home. I was depressed. We were trying to keep the pieces of us together. We were talking about a future. I didn’t see a future without him walking by my side. I honestly was naive to believe that as long as we had each other, we would be okay.

In a blink of an eye, he dropped. I was confused, I was hurt. It was just weeks after our anniversary. He said he wasn’t leaving me, that he loved me but just needed some time to figure his own things out. I tried, but as the days went into weeks and then a month I was going insane.

I worried about him all the time. I just wanted some peace of mind that he was safe and alive. I knew about his suicidal thoughts, but I put myself into a constant panic because of them.

After a month and a half, the night before my ACT I had to do what at the time was the best for me. I broke things off after 13 months. I was still in love with him. It was the hardest thing for me to do. I needed to focus on myself.

I needed to heal from the roughest couple of months of my life.

I prayed for his safety and for him to become healthy. I didn’t know how long it would take, but I believed he would one day return to my life. He came to my mind often. I had days where it was a second thought, or nights where I was crying and wanted his comfort. But I knew that for my own mental health, I had to focus on myself.

My first day of college, I saw him again. It was unexpected. I watched him intently; unsure how to feel since my anxiety was already off the charts.

His laugh brought my repressed feelings all to the surface. We kept the conversation short, but we made our first step. A couple of weeks later, we started hanging out again. It felt like nothing had changed; as if the past several months hadn’t happened, and we had been together the entire time.

Now, we are back together. We take each day as a gift, and have better communication than we ever did. I tend to get tons of questions, why him?He’s my best friend and my partner through life. I’ve been with him for going on two years in February. I know that not every day is easy.

I also now know that the Nicholas Sparks stories and fairytales isn’t what real raw love is.

Love is a complicated thing, but we both fight for one another.

A close friend of ours said to us one night after we had explained to him what had happened. And what he said has been our way to explain everything, “For a while, y’all just had to be not.”

We just needed to separate because both of our mental illnesses were messing with the others’.

He also said to us, “You two found one another again, that’s something special, that doesn’t happen in most couples.”

I don’t expect everything to be perfect now, I know that he isn’t and neither am I.

That’s okay. That’s love.