This Is What I’ve Become Since You Left

Before you came into my life, I was a different person. I was a girl who believed in love and that there was good in everyone. I was someone who was ready to give herself completely when she loved someone, a girl who was ready to fight the world for the person she cared about. I was a person who trusted people, who didn’t think everyone was there just to hurt her. I looked at everything positively and optimistically and always saw the light at the end of the tunnel.

And then you came into my life. From the first moment, you kept repeating to me that love didn’t exist and that it was something only foolish people believed in. You thought of me as a sensitive, naive, little girl who had no clue about life. You tried to persuade me not to be an empath and not to rely on people because everyone would hurt me sooner or later.

I need to be honest—you never promised me anything. From day one, you were telling me not to expect much from you, because you had nothing to give me. You were telling me that you weren’t ready to commit and that you would never be someone who could love me the way I expected to be loved.

But instead of walking away from you, I took it as a challenge. I thought I could change you, only if I loved you enough. I was sure I could fix you. I decided to be your savior and the person who would heal you.

It took me a long time before I realized that there are men who don’t want to be saved. And it hurt me to accept that you were one of those men.

It took me even longer to realize that actually I wasn’t saving you—you were destroying me all along. You were destroying me throughout our entire relationship but you destroyed me the most when you walked away from me.

By doing that, you broke me completely. You shattered all my hopes of our future together. You destroyed my dreams that you’d ever change and become a different man and all my hopes that you’d realize love was worthy of everything in life.

But that was something I could manage to fight with. That was something that I could live with and something I could take.

But what I couldn’t take was myself. I couldn’t stand the fact that you’d changed me this much. I couldn’t face the fact that you’d managed to change everything I ever believed in, that you managed to change the essence of who I was. I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror, knowing what I’d become. I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror, knowing what you made me become. I couldn’t stand the fact that I allowed myself to be lost to the narcissistic man that you were.

And that is something I can’t stand even today.
I try very hard not to become the selfish and toxic person you are. I still try not to hurt anyone around me. And I hope I am succeeding in that.

But what I can’t succeed in is not hurting myself.

You made me a bitter, negative person who started believing you when you said that love was just a fairy tale.

You convinced me that people aren’t honest in general and that I should trust no one. You made me think that everyone is just trying to use me and that I shouldn’t open up to anyone.

Thanks to you, I’ve become a closed person who built thick and high walls around me. I’ve stopped putting myself out there and I’ve stopped giving myself to anyone. I’ve stopped believing that there is good in everyone and I’ve stopped trying to save people. I stopped putting effort into all relationships, especially into romantic ones.

But most of all, you made me think that I will never meet a man who will be different. You convinced me that there will never come a man who will love me for who I really am, a man who will heal all of my wounds and scars that you left behind, a man who will at least try to match my efforts. You convinced me that I will never find true love and that soulmates don’t exist.

You see, I’ve become very much like you. I’ve become everything I swore I’d never become and everything I wanted you to stop being. I’ve become everything I’ve tried to save you from. And that is my biggest defeat.