You feel betrayed, heartbroken, and most of all like there is something wrong with you. Being cheated on is more than just heartbreak. It affects your mental health as well.

Personally, I have been in two serious relationships and have been cheated on in each. I find myself constantly asking myself “what did I do wrong?”

The fact of the matter is that it wasn’t about me. The guys I dated were selfish pigs.

I strived to be a loyal and loving girlfriend and put my best effort forth, but that is something they took advantage of.

Cheating on someone is the low of all lows in relationships. Why stab someone in the back that put his or her trust into you? Why not break it off before you get with someone else?

I found out that my ex was cheating on me when a girl messaged me on Twitter.

I had had my suspicions due to it being a rocky relationship but I wanted nothing more than to think I was wrong. There is nothing worse than a random girl (let's call her Rose) sending you paragraphs about how your boyfriend has been with her for the past month.

At first, I tried telling myself it was a lie and that this girl must be crazy.

Despite my suspicions, you still never think its actually going to happen. I was in such shock; I was so sick to my stomach that I couldn’t even move. Then, I was angry, so, so angry. All I wanted to do was yell at my then-boyfriend and poke his eyes out with a fork, but shocker, he was drunk at the bar with another girl (Rose was sending me live updates and pictures of him) and he was ignoring all my phone calls. And finally, I cried. I cried until I couldn’t even produce more tears.

I had never felt so broken in my entire life.

This was my second time being cheated on and it felt as if my world was falling apart. And obviously I knew I was young and that my world wasn’t ending, but when you put all your effort into someone to only have them break you down, it's pretty emotionally and mentally draining.

The next day my then-boyfriend tried to make me think she was lying. But I had enough proof that even I couldn’t fool myself anymore. I remember I was walking around my school’s campus yelling on the phone. I didn’t even care what people heard, I had never been so mad in my life.

The next six days were hell. I didn’t talk to anyone, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep.

And I couldn’t make my thoughts shut the hell up. Constantly playing over and over again was the question of what went wrong, I drove myself mad.

The feeling of your heart sinking into your stomach and smashing into the ground 50 feet happened every hour. The moment I found out kept replaying and never stopped. I kept trying to find a reason as to why all of this happened. I was pounding my ex with questions trying to squirm something out of him but I got nothing from it.

However, I made the stupid, god-awful decision to give him a second chance. As if there weren’t already 10,000 red flags, but I thought I could see through the bad. I thought I could forgive and forget.

Let me tell you what.

You can’t. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t erase the image. I was finding myself disliking him more and more each day. But I was in such a deep hole of being broken that I couldn’t find a way up. So I stayed. And it got worse.

My self-esteem dropped so much. I had never hated myself more and I changed into a completely different person. I shut out all my friends and stopped doing anything fun. I started to hate everyone just out of resentment of the fact that I was so unhappy. I broke down into someone I prayed I would never be. I knew I deserved better,

I knew I was unhappy, but I let this person control me and my thoughts regardless.

This rocky relationship had dragged me so far down that even over the upcoming summer I didn’t do anything except obsess about working out. I gained unhealthy habits to try to train my brain to forget what happened.

We officially broke up last October but I still allowed myself to talk to him and control me until about five months ago. Now, I can proudly say that I dug myself out of that hole. I found that I didn’t need someone to rely on 24/7 and that I was so much happier without him. My friends now always tell me that I made a complete 360-degree change from what I had gone through.

I may still be dealing with other issues but that’s another story for another day.

For those girls and guys struggling with a broken relationship or dealing with being cheated on, just keep pushing through. It has taken me a full year to see how strong of a person I am now. All I have left to say is, thank you to my exes. You have taught me what I don’t need and have shown me what I am truly capable of.