Why the Boy That Broke You Saved You

We have all had someone who has let us down so many times and in so many ways to the point where we feel broken or that something is wrong with us. We allow ourselves to go into such a dark place where we begin to place blame ourselves as to why something did not work out, when in reality that is most often not the case. I am one of those people.

For a long time, I blamed myself when someone I cared for left. I let the end of the relationship end the person that I was. This person made me feel love like I never have and made me feel hate like I never want to again. Not only did I hate them, I started to hate myself. I became very aware of things I thought were wrong with me and as more days went by, more imperfections about myself clouded my mind. I let myself stay in on nights I should’ve gone out. On nights where I forced myself to go out, I was not myself and certainly didn't feel like myself.

Eventually, that feeling of helplessness and being stuck in that low point got old. I was hit with the realization that the person I became was not who I wanted to be and that maybe who I was, wasn’t the problem. Maybe letting someone who didn’t love me like I deserved to be loved was just the icing on the cake of a relationship meant to end in disaster. And maybe, just maybe, this meant there were better things to come.

This relationship may have ended in disaster and spun my life out of orbit for a bit, but I was better off and I knew that now. All the things I had started to dislike about myself, I slowly started to love again. All the imperfections I picked out started fading like the memories of the relationship that I once held so tightly onto.

Heartbreak showed me everything I didn’t want in a man and showed me all the things I love about myself. I now knew how I wanted and deserved to be loved and treated. I now knew what fights were worth picking and what things to let roll off my shoulder. Love isn’t loving someone for being perfect but loving their imperfections and faults.

Although I hated this person for making me feel how I did, I’m happy, because I would’ve never made the realizations I did. I would still think that everything was my fault. I would still think I need a man in order to be happy when I don’t. And most of all I would still think I needed a man to make me happy or to validate who I am as a person.

To the man who hurt me I say this to you, "Though it may not seem like it, you saved me. You saved me from falling for another boy like you. You made me hate myself but after that I loved myself ten times harder and because of that I became who I am today. And I have even found someone who got me to fall back in love with my insecurities while undoubtedly falling for him. By hurting me without knowing it, you saved me from you and your unwillingness to love someone more than you love yourself."

Although I felt beyond unlucky at the time, I am lucky. I am lucky to have felt like I hit rock bottom and came back better than before. It takes courage to admit you’re hurting but it takes even more to get yourself out of the darkness. Without pain, the good times do not feel as good and the bad times seem like end of the world. But I am living proof that from hurt comes strength and from strength come success.

So I leave you with this, if you’re hurting ask yourself why, and if that why is something that was ultimately inevitable pick yourself up and push past it. I promise it is worth it, because up until this point you have survived everything you have been through.