Just because he couldn’t see your potential does not mean you are allowed to give up on yourself.
He didn’t appreciate you. When you got your hair done (he didn’t notice), when you took a little extra time getting ready (he was angry that it took so long), when you sent him a long text message explaining what was wrong (he complained that it was too much to read and that it didn’t matter), and when you made him mad (he hit you).
You sit up at night and run over things in your head while he sleeps soundly next to you. “What did I do?”, “I shouldn’t have done that, it’s my fault.”, “He deserves better.” You need your sleep baby girl. “Why did he cheat on me?”, “It’s all my fault, If I was a better girlfriend he wouldn’t have had to look anywhere else.” You have to get your sleep you work early.
You lay there wide-awake arguing with yourself until you alarm goes off. As you get changed for work and you are about to walk out of the bedroom when you hear, “Oh so no kiss goodbye?” You walk over to give him a kiss for the day, but now he is mad and turns his back… I am sorry.
As you are driving to work you get a text message from him saying how much you don’t care about him, it makes your day a living hell.
Even though you have other things to do after work you have to skip it to go home and make things right with him.
Your life is falling apart because your focus is on making him happy. You start crying while you are in bed. He comes in the bedroom and holds you while you cry and tells you that everything is going to be okay. Moments later he is yelling at you for something you didn’t do right around the house. Next thing you hear something breaking and his steps getting heavier. He’s mad. He comes to you with heavy fist, as you feel a hand coming flying across your face. You aren’t even sure why he is mad.
“Why are you mad?” You asked while he is throwing your stuff around the room. He starts walking towards you, I shouldn’t have asked. You’re crying on the bed when he walks up and says, “You act like I beat you like a battered woman, I’ll show you what a battered woman feels like.” You lay there while he punches you with what feels like the weight of the world, somehow you end up on the floor as he kicks your sides as hard as possible.
I don’t know what I did. As you sob on the ground you are punched in the head and feel your nose start to bleed, he leaves the room. Call the police. You can’t move though, you laid there paralyze with fear.
Finally, you get the momentum to move and you go to the bathroom to clean yourself up. As you look in the mirror at your bloody nose and black eye you start to cry, how did my life come to this? You jump in the shower and try to tell yourself you are fine. You aren’t fine.
This is just one night that continued on for way too long.
You finally left, you finally told friends and family what has been going on, and everyone is treating you differently. I just want things back to how they were before I met him. “Do you need anything?”, “I always knew he would do this.”, “Why didn’t you tell me?”. You didn’t tell anyone because you thought things would change. The last straw was him bashing your head against the wall.
You never wanted to be that person that goes to therapy or call a 1-800 hotline. My life isn’t that bad, someone has it worse. Stop comparing your problems to everyone else, because everybody has something going on in their life.
You don’t want everybody to know what you have been going through because you don’t want their sympathy. I am going now, I don’t want you to worry. That best friend back home that you don’t think cares is beating herself up about the fact you couldn’t ‘come to her’, your parents are crying because they can’t believe they let someone hurt their child. Not telling them hurt them more than if I would have asked for help.
You are a gift to the world. Take it from someone that lost all hope twice and decided they didn’t want to fight anymore. From someone who knows what it feels like to feel worthless to the world.
There can be a million people in the world telling you how much they care about you, how much they are there for you, and yet you still feel so alone. You feel like you are drowning and you just need someone to throw you a life jacket, because you need that breath of fresh air so bad.
The truth is, sometimes you have to swim yourself back to the top. When you can’t take it anymore and you want to scream, scream. Find a pillow scream as loud as you can, find a weight bench and lift those weights until you stop thinking about it, go sit in a tree stand and focus on getting that buck, find something that you are so passionate about, and remember why you are here.
You have so much to give in the world. This is not your fault.
It’s their fault that they couldn’t see your potential. The pain they caused, the feeling you get in your chest when you think about how you ‘wasted’ so much of your life, and that feeling you get when you start to hate yourself for letting it happen… It’s not your fault.
There are hurdles in the way. It’s never too late to see your own potential, it’s never too late to get a second chance. Beauty isn’t found in a face, but in a soul. You made mistakes in the past few years, but don’t let them follow you for the rest of your life.
Stay strong to see the frost on your car on a cold winter morning, to walk outside on the first day of fall to a burst of fresh air, to see the what amazing places your future is going to take you. Know that you are never alone in this big world, it gets better.
