I am writing this letter two years after I last talked to you. Two years after you broke my heart. Two years after you changed the person I used to be.

We dated for a year, and that year was the most up and down year I've ever had in my eighteen years of life. One day we were fine and the most in-love couple anyone has every seen, then the next day I was your worst enemy. You hated every part of my being and questioned my every move. It's simple to say that you didn't trust me, as many times as you said you did, we both know that was a lie. You abused me verbally and put me down with every opportunity you had while acting like the things you did were perfectly fine. You accused me of cheating, lying, and disrespecting you. However, while you were so busy accusing me of these things, you were the one actually doing them.

The beginning of our relationship started off like any other, the flame between us grew stronger and stronger. You were the only thing that began to fill my thoughts and I didn't mind it one bit. You could change my mood with ease, and even make my day by giving me one simple phone call. You were my savior, my knight in shining armor.

While some fairy tales end in happy endings, mind did not. You used me. You took me for granted. You disappointed me. Worst of all, you lied to me, you broke me and my heart, and you didn't even stick around long enough to see where the pieces landed. But the funny part is, I didn't want you to. Cheating on me changed the way I perceived you. It turned the thoughts in my mind of you from good to bad. The perfect person you once were was changed to a person I wish I never would have met.

My mind began to fill with thoughts of "Why wasn't I enough?" "Why didn't he love me?" And then came my epiphany, it wasn't me, it was him. I know, cliche right? However, it was true. There wasn't and isn't anything wrong with me. Yet somewhere along the line I believed that there was, because of you. My confidence in myself shifted and my heart began to change.

I no longer trusted people, even when they have given me no reason not to. I believed that every person that I met would do me just as wrong as you did. I took everything people said to heart even if they were "kidding" because when you were kidding, that was another lie. My self esteem was lower than ever due to you knocking my appearance every chance you had.

Now, I see differently. I still no longer trust people in anything that they do but I have began to have higher self-esteem, I have started to love myself for who I am and realize that there is nothing wrong with that.

So the next time you find yourself drowning in self-hate, remind yourself that you weren't born feeling this way. That at some point, some person sent you the message that there was something wrong with who you are, and you internalized those messages and took them on as your truth. But that hate isn't yours to carry. And in the same way you learned to think badly about yourself, you can start thinking self-loving thoughts. You can learn to challenge those beliefs. It wont be easy, and it wont happen over night, but it is possible. And it starts when you decide that there has to be more to life than this pain you feel. It starts when you decide that you deserve to discover it.