Toxic Relationships 101

I spent most of my adolescent years trying to change who I was to not be left all alone.

I kept living for everyone else except for me; all I did was keep everyone in my life happy, but deep down I felt like I didn't even know who I was and what I really wanted of life. I limited my dreams to what my boyfriend at the moment was planning for OUR future; I didn't even want to invest in my future in any way because, in the end, I was limited to being at his service for the sake of HIS dreams. Not only did I limit my professional aspirations, I limited also my interests in certain topics because "they were too complicated or too political", I limited my personal style because I didn't want to attract any attention to myself because other men could find me attractive and, especially, I limited my feelings, so I didn't make any of them feel bad for hurting me or for doing something I didn't like.

Whenever I tried to show my true self, I got so many negative answers:

"After all I do for you, are you really not going to do this for me?"

"Don't do your hair like that, you draw too much attention"

"Your degree is only a passtime, in the end I will be the one to get you through"

I felt like my dreams were less important than the ones the men in my life had. I was trapped with them being the only ones with a voice and a vote about what was going to be my role in the relationship.

I really tried to be strong, to be resilient and to move on after each breakup, but after being called a whore by people that didn't even know me for breaking up with a boy that kept making me feel like I was in debt with him for "everything he did for me" and after being treated by two older men as if I was worth less because I was young and inexperienced in "what life really was", I felt as if I was being too demanding in dreaming about someone who would treat me right and who would take me with all that I was.

I ended up with a single question in my mind: "could it be possible that I am too hard to love?".

It wasn't until I met someone who really validated my feelings that I realized I wasn't, in fact, too hard to love. I hadn't just met the right kind of man.

This particular man helped me understand that, when you want to be with someone and when you claim you love someone, you don't want them to be a certain way, neither do you need them to change anything about themselves to be just what you think you want. Truly loving someone means accepting them as they are, even if they don't fit exactly into the mold you made yourself believe was the right one. Even though I am not in a relationship with him anymore and even though we stayed as friends, he made me understand that when you really love someone you don't want them to deny themselves or to let their dreams go to be with you; what you want is to share your freedom with them and to grow together.

Once you understand that you don't NEED someone to be with you, but when you voluntarily, with all that you are and all that they are, choose to be with them, you can actually feel what love is really like.

With him, I was listened to, I was understood and, especially, I was acknowledged. Being with him helped me understand that I needed to stop being afraid of establishing limits, because the problem was not in the limit itself or in me for setting it, but in the person that got mad at me for setting it. Also, I understood that, before anything else, you need to find yourself and what you want to do about your life if you want to share it with someone else because you are going to end up giving it all up for their dreams if you don't consider yourself and your dreams important enough.

I would like to inspire more women to identify the red flags on time, since I was able to identify them once I was already hurt. Don't be afraid to speak up, to talk about what hurt you and to establish limits and, especially, don't be afraid to be yourselves, the right person will always love the real version of you.