There was once a time in my life, where a boy brought out the worst in me…and I mean the absolute worst version of myself I ever could be. He brought out every ounce of anger I thought I had gotten over. That wasn’t true. He tested every part of my identity and what I believed so strongly about myself. He broke me down into the tiniest pieces and made me believe that I was the worst person on the planet, like every good part of me that existed suddenly disappeared.
He made me question every bit of my being. Every ounce of humanity I had vanished within the blink of an eye. He made me think I was nothing. I became nothing. I believed everything this man thought of me, even though I tried so hard to fight for the good that I still somewhat had.
I questioned my existence for months, believing that I wasn’t worthy of the person I was. He absolutely destroyed me, and I deserved it.
There is beauty within being destroyed…being muddled into a pulp of nothingness. You lose everything…everything that once mattered feels frivolous. You sit within that discomfort, and it tests you. Who really are you, or better yet, who do you want to be?
I spent years retraining my brain, spending endless nights trying to understand what truly mattered to me. I looked for my “why.” I realized that you can only break someone if they were never truly whole in the first place. I was already fragile when I met him, so I was like an open door to him. I was living in a façade, thinking that I knew everything…who I was and who I was going to be. He brought to light everything I no longer wanted to be.
So, I taught myself how to rebuild my core truth in spite of all the bad that once surrounded me. I built resilience…better yet, I found my truth. I found my identity and made sure it was unbreakable. I still have bad days, don’t get me wrong…but to my core, I always come back to myself.
So yes, he may have destroyed me, but that also led me to a much greater gift: the gift of resilience, strength, and an overall understanding of who I am when the outside world can’t hinder my thoughts.