I can't say that I never loved him. When I met him he was funny, charming, and everything about him drew me in. While I can confidently say the beginning of our relationship was without a doubt, a beautiful experience I would not take back for the world, I can't say that for the duration of our relationship. When it was good, it was good, but when it was bad, it was bad.

I felt like it was splitting me in two. I felt like all love that I had was being left at the center of the husk I was becoming. I began to question myself through his insecurities, I began to think I was loveless and incapable of maintaining a healthy relationship. I began to see myself as a cheater even though I never cheated, his accusations bribed me. I stopped seeking help and started talking about how much I couldn't be with him, how much I hated him.

We were so toxic for one another. His love became controlling and what seemed like love became willful manipulation. Every second we were taking turns being the victim and being the bad guy. I was heartless. He was suffocating. It was the same argument. Then we would promise to change. He wanted to make it work so bad, to the point where I wanted it to work for the sake of him and not for me.

I have heard from so many of my friends, men and women, of this same relationship. Where the love is fading, where they become isolated and mentally exhausted. I have watched myself and the ones I love crumble under the weight of toxic love. As a way of healing and gaining agency from trauma, I have composed a letter, a letter to the asshole who tried to recycle my life and my story and mold me into a person I am not.

So, dear asshole,

Thank you for filling my life with six months of anxiety. Thank you for making me feel like I didn't care enough. Thank you for making me feel like the decisions I made, like breaking up with you and the prospect of me continuing my education out of state, would be the deciding factor of whether you should commit suicide. Thank you for making me feel like your suicide would be my fault. Thank you for treating me like your object. Thank you for making me an object. Thank you for making me feel like I was never going to be loved as much as you loved me. Thank you for slandering me on a stage in front of our friends and on social media. Thank you for breaking my things. Thank you for endangering my life. Thank you for making me feel like my depression wasn't real and that my need to be alone wasn't valid. Thank you for treating my space like your own. Thank you for accusing me of sleeping with your friends. Thank you for making my feminism uncomfortable because my "strong independent woman bullshit" was getting in the way of your desires. But most of all, thank you for trapping me, emotionally, physically, and sexually. Thank you for bribing out of my freedom for your cheap love.

But for real, thank you for being too weak to break me, and thanks to me for being stronger than you, to let you win.