You could have left without completely screwing me over. You could have walked away without leaving such lasting damage. I’m not blaming you for leaving. I’m blaming you for the way you left.
You could have been mature. You could have listed out your reasons for the mistakes you made and I would have listened. I might have cried, I might have contradicted you, I might have hated you, but I would have listened.
I wanted to part ways peacefully, but you took that opportunity away from me. I have screenshotted texts of the nasty things you said to me. I have unavoidable memories of the fights, the screams, the insane accusations. I have untold stories too painful to tell friends.
You made separating a million times harder than it needed to be. You turned a raindrop into a hurricane.
I might not be able to escape from the thought of you, but I was able to escape from you. Now that you are out of my life, you are never wriggling your way back in.
You know how hard I am on myself. I tear myself to pieces. I consider myself a failure, a fuck up. I am the most insecure person you will ever meet. But I still swear up and down that I did nothing to deserve the heartbreak you brought me.
You shouldn’t have been such an asshole. You had no right to treat me the way you did. I hope you feel guilty about the last words we shared. I hope you hate yourself for what you put me through. I hope you are self-aware enough to realize you were wrong.
But you are probably still blaming the rest of the world. You are probably playing the victim. You are probably twisting the narrative to make it seem like you were the one heartbroken, like you were the one who never deserved the pain keeping you awake at night.
You might be able to fool whatever friends you have left, but you are not going to convince me you were the good guy. What you put me through is not okay. I have to keep reminding myself that. It was not normal. It was not warranted. It was not healthy.
The trauma you forced me to endure changed me. I wish it made me stronger. Maybe it did in a weird way. But right now, I only feel weaker. I feel broken. I feel like you took the ability to trust away from me. You forced me to raise my guard. You nudged me toward a version of myself I am not comfortable seeing.
Even though relationships are going to be difficult for me in the future because of what I have been through in the past, I’m not going to let you win. I’m not going to give you the satisfaction of seeing me turn out as miserable as you.
I am going to thrive without you. I am going to find the happiness you kept me away from for such a long time.
By Holly Riordan for ThoughtCatalog