You're Never Alone: A Message To My Friend In An Abusive Relationship

Early in my college career, one of my closest friends found herself in an abusive relationship.

She still hasn't found a way to fully walk away from it.

Over and over again, she's given the excuses, "He's changed," and "Things will be different this time."

But nothing has changed.

She's trapped in a web of lies and false hope, and it's time for her to make an escape.

Even though this letter is directed toward her, I hope it gives every woman who has ever found herself in a degrading, manipulative relationship the courage to leave and take back the life she deserves.

You are all important. You are all special. You are all worth so much more than how your partner has been treating you all this time.

Your relationship isn't giving you anything. It's taking away everything that makes you extraordinary.

Dear survivor,

Over the past few years, I’ve watched you pour your heart and soul out to a guy who repeatedly tears you down.

I’ve watched as he’s taken my confident, blissful best friend and made her one of those women who believes, “He hits me because he loves me.”

You’ve lost the light in your eyes.

He’s made you a shell of the woman you once were.

Now, you’re broken and insecure, and you don’t know how to move past a guy who you think is your everything.

He’s not your everything. He never will be.

You are his pawn in a never-ending cycle of emotional and psychological abuse.

His entire existence revolves around you. He feeds on your fragile emotional state and preys on your weaknesses.

He’ll bring you down because that’s the only way he can feel remotely comfortable in his own skin.

Every time you're about to leave him for good, he’ll give you a shred of affection he knows will send you crawling back.

He’ll say some variety of, “I love you," “I feel lost without you," “I’m sorry for everything" or my personal favorite, “I’ll change.”

He knows he has you.

He doesn’t actually mean any of the words spilling out of his mouth.

You’ve convinced yourself this time is different.

He actually has changed, and you’ll downplay the previously degrading incidents.

You’ll create this fantasy in your head where you actually believe this time, everything will magically work out and you’ll live happily ever after.

He hasn't changed.

Sure, he might treat you right for the first few days. But then, the cycle will inevitably repeat itself.

Something will set him off.

He’ll severely misinterpret something you say, he’ll drastically blow a situation out of proportion and worst of all, he’ll convince you it’s your fault.

He’ll plant the seed in your mind that everything bad that’s happened in the relationship is your fault.

Nothing is ever your fault.

Never blame yourself for anything he claims you are the sole cause of.

Relationships are supposed to be a two-way street, not a manipulative game of winners and losers.

You deserve so much more. You are worth so much more. You are an amazing human being who deserves to be treasured.

I know you think you love him. To an extent, you probably did in the beginning, before the storm began.

You want to believe all of the happy memories you two shared were real, and that at some point, he actually did care.

You’ll torture yourself searching for memories that prove he is capable of changing, and you'll believe maybe this is just a rough patch in his life.

It’s not.

He has an illness that revolves around preying on your soul. You'll only heal when you finally work up the nerve to leave for good and never look back.

Leave this toxic place and this toxic man in your past.

I know you think you’ll never find love, and no guy will ever want to be with you if you are actually all the things he says you are.

You’re not the problem here. He is.

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

Much to the heartbreak of all those who truly love you, you’ve let him take advantage of you for far too long.

It’s time for you to let go and start becoming the woman I used to know, the woman who wouldn’t take sh*t from anyone and who believed she could conquer the world without a man by her side.

I miss that woman. I know, right now, you think you are too broken to move on.

You’re not.

You are so special. You are important.

You deserve a man who worships you and a man who will help you through your darkest days without ever being the cause of them.

I know you’re probably thinking you don’t need advice because your situation and your man are different. But they’re not.

You fell into a toxic situation, and it’s your time to break free.

You can do it. I believe in you.

You are a strong, resilient woman, and you have the power to set yourself free once and for all.

If you think no one will be by your side to help you through it, you’re wrong.

You’ll always have me by your side to support you along the way.

You are not fighting this seemingly endless war alone.

You are never alone.