Last week, I had the opportunity to hear news anchor Amy Robach speak about her cancer journey. It was such a beautiful speech; it was so heartfelt and personal, and regardless of the fact that I admittedly really didn't want to go, I cried about four times during the hour and a half speech. Amy spoke about her experiences with balancing work and her chemo treatments, how it affected her family, and how she is doing now four years later. She also talked about some advice people gave her during her cancer battle. One quote (of many) that stuck with me the whole time came from Robin Roberts telling Amy to "make your mess, your message."

Anyone who knows me knows I am a mess and that my biggest mess to date was high school. Now, I'm not a cancer survivor, but I did survive something, it was a personal, emotional mess. I want to tell others about it so they can learn something, and I can hopefully help a girl in the same position as I was before it gets to be too late. I struggled with a lot in high school, but I specifically struggled with a relationship I had.

I met my first on-again/off-again, long term boyfriend my freshman year of high school. He came into my life at a really tough time for me and my family. For the sake of anonymity, we are going to call him Fred. Fred was my rock, my light, and the love of my life. My young mind thought I was going to be with him for the rest of my life. He helped me when I was going through a lot and felt like there was nobody there for me. I thought our relationship was perfect. But I thought wrong.

What I did not realize was how abusive our relationship was. Fred was not physically abusive, nor was he verbally abusive. It was an emotionally abusive relationship. Fred and I fought constantly, almost daily, over what seemed like life-altering and relationship- ending topics, but in retrospect were so insignificant. Each time we fought, it somehow ended up being my fault, even in fights where we both were to blame, as well as fights I did not even start. I lost friendships that I had valued for years because he did not trust my friends or want me to hang around them. He wanted me to be friends with people he liked and who he was friends with. Our relationship had a huge lack of trust on both ends. He constantly asked to see my phone so he could see who I was texting, trying to catch me cheating on him or catch me in a lie. He got mad if I went out on the weekends with friends, while I was supposed to sit back and be okay with him doing the exact same things. I was supposed to be okay with the title "Fred's girlfriend," or "Fred's Sarah." I was not my own person. I was his property. I had a title, but not a personality. No one would talk to me because they were afraid of what he would say to them. Not once in high school was I known as my own person; even after we had broken up for good, I was still known as "Fred's ex-girlfriend." He compared our relationship to those of our friends, showing how they were better or how "good" I had it because I was with him when other girls did not get that chance. I changed who I was while I was with him so I could be the girl he wanted me to be, so he would love me, and I could feel some form of validation from him.

We were horrible together. There were so many red flags, but I was oblivious to all of them and I ignored all of the people who told me that they were there. But I stayed with him and tried to make our broken relationship work because nothing broke my heart more than the thought of ever having to be without him in my life. I didn't want to end the relationship because I thought my life would fall apart.

I did not realize that what was making me so unhappy was what I thought I couldn't live without. Eventually, our relationship escalated to the point where I made some bad decisions about my personal health and suffered the repercussions of those choices. It escalated to the point where I moved half way across the country to try and heal myself after I graduated high school. It escalated to the point where relationships and being so close and intimate with another person caused me anxiety, which I still struggle with today.

I'm not writing this to bash on Fred and our relationship. I'm writing this because I made bad decisions while I was with Fred. I severely damaged my relationships with my parents, my friends, and people who I looked up to because I thought he was the most important person in my life. In reality, Fred left a lot of emotional damage I am still struggle to fix. I am writing this because I want people to realize that even if you think you're happy, you need to take a step back and realize there can be a lot of things wrong that are not healthy. I am writing this to make my mess of a relationship my message: if you or someone you know is in a relationship like the one I was in and I described just now, please, please try to help yourself or them, so nobody has to go through what I did.

What I also did not realize about our relationship, was that so many other girls, including some I knew, had the same experience I did. Please realize... you are not alone. Talk to someone in your life about what is going on so that things do not escalate as far as they did for me. Don't be afraid to talk about it, there is someone out there who wants to listen and help you; chances are that they experienced something similar. Everyone deserves to be in a happy and healthy relationship, but you should not compromise you, your life, or your health to achieve that.