We were together for 2 years and 3 months. (I'm one of those people who counts the exact amounts days of a relationship.) He was my first boyfriend and my first "love". I doubt it was really love, now that's it's been over for so long it feels like it was just overwhelming desperation to be in love. 

We would break up all the time. Almost every single week. Except we would just get back together in a matter of hours.
When we fought he would call me every name in the book. Whore, bitch, liar, cunt, you name it and he said it with as much hatred as a human can muster. I have my suspicions that he was also BPD, but that's no excuse for his awful behavior. 

There are so many horror stories I could tell you about the relationship as a whole, *but the one that absolutely killed our relationship was this*: I had decided to do something without him. He could not do this with me even if he wanted to, on top of that he had told me he did not want to do it. So I went about my business and I had a good time and I'm about to send him a text to let him know that I'm thinking about him and I have an entire WALL of messages. Apparently I was a backstabbing bitch, a cheating whore, and I didn't truly love him. I was only a young girl and I didn't know that I shouldn't play into that behavior and I had decided to apologize. I tried everything to diffuse the situation, but he was determined to be angry no matter what I said. After about 30 minutes of fighting he did something absolutely unforgivable. *He told me to kill myself.*

I remember there were times when I had called him crying because I felt suicidal and I didn't want to be alone. He used that against me. He wasn't even yelling. He was so calm, like it was something he had wanted to say for a long time and he was finally ready to say it. It broke my heart more than anything that had ever happened to me before. I felt absolutely betrayed. After everything I gave to him like my time, my money, my affection, my body, my conversation.

I always held him in such high regard. I looked up to him and admittedly, not in a healthy way. After that though, I could only see what he really was. A broken boy and there was nothing that I could do to fix him. As much I may have wanted to. I thought about all the hurt he's put me through and how I still never said anything like that to him. I realized that, even if he wasn't a bad person, he was a very bad person for me. Anytime he wanted to manipulate me, he'd do it. I realized that I wanted someone who respected me like I respected them. I loved him despite his flaws and he loved me when I added something to the table. 

When I had finally decided it was over I told him I was coming over. I grabbed my things and he followed me out to my car. I told him that I didn't hate him, but I hated *dating* him and I just couldn't do it anymore. I hated how he treated me and acted like everything was my fault. The only thing he said was "Why does everyone always leave me?". I told him it might have something to do with the fact that he pushes everyone away, but in the end he just blamed everyone else for leaving. I drove off, left him crying in the dust (literally, since it was a dirt road). It felt so good to finally be free. It had been over for me for so long, that when I actually ended it, I was done grieving and I was just ready to wake up to no fighting, no controlling what I wear, no telling me who I can and can't talk to, no judging me on everything I say and do, no coercion into having sex that I was not in the mood for, no pandering because I'm scared of how he'll react, and no talking him off the ledge when *he* felt suicidal.

It's been about 4 years since that day and I've grown so much as a person. I think about him sometimes still. Not in a way that makes me miss him, but a way that makes me take pity on that boy from years ago. I hope he got help and is trying to be a better person, but I still would never let him back into my life. I won't pretend like my life is all peaches and roses now that he's gone, but at least I'm free to heal. I'm not dating anyone else until I become who I've always wanted to be: Just unapologetically me.