When people find out about what an emotional crumble my esteem and self-assurance became as a result of the relationship, they look at me with sad, sympathetic eyes and say, “Oh honey, he ruined your life.”

He did not ruin my life.

“I can’t take it it ‘cause you think nobody sees what you’re doing to me /
I’m telling you guilt is in your eyes /
I hate what you’ve done, what you’ve made me become /
No sleep, face the night” – Foxes, "Holding onto Heaven"

My heart was splitting apart slowly, seams becoming unsown fibers untangling, muscles loosely held together by the song of hope and the foolish monotonous repetition of my mind unwilling to let go of the love I naively had for him.

I spent the summer before my sophomore year longing for him, craving his cocaine smile and a voice so obnoxiously addicting, I needed to shoot it up into my veins like heroin. I spent the summer standing in front of full-length mirrors tugging at the extra skin above my hips, around my belly button, because he always compared me to more attractive, "fit" girls. The month of May brought regret in the form of avoiding mirrors because I knew he hated my short hair. The month of June overturned my wrists and showed me my blue-green veins under translucent skin, feeling the pressure of his callused thumb once again, from when he grabbed my wrists when I’d angered him. The month of July brought voices melting in the static of the humidity taunting “He never loved you.” The month of August brought finality.

I spent that summer adding dollar figures to the water bill in our household, letting the shower imitate the rain I’d felt when there were clear blue skies. I spent the summer wondering why I wasn’t good enough, what was wrong with me, what I did to deserve this treatment and why he didn’t want me.

I spent months wondering why the pain manifested like the disease he was deep into the marrow of my bones. I spent months denying his abuse, unwilling to see it for what it actually was. I spent months blaming myself for allowing him to mistreat me, allowing him to dust my body with repetitive handprints. I spent months trying to understand a trauma I didn’t even classify as traumatic. I spent months trying to shuffle through debris, the aftermath of an atomic bomb amidst an unidentifiable war.

The fall semester of my sophomore year, of this past year, I was a ticking grenade. I was a bomb buried beneath the surface of the earth, waiting for someone to step above me and trigger an explosion. I was a mess of shrapnel waiting to disassemble and rupture. I worked hard, distracting myself by plunging under the surface of my studies and throwing myself into Greek life. I was trying to rebuild something on an unsteady foundation -- I was trying to approve blueprints for a construction site that was suffering from a natural disaster.

I painted him as a villain: dark in nature and inherently evil. I was soaked in pain and dripping with melancholy. I spent all too much time brewing with anger, speaking with a tongue coated in bitterness and eyes jaded from suppressed abuse. I was a shell of a bright-eyed, impassioned youth spending weekend nights tipping back bottles of liquor trying to drown memories in temporary poison, but all it did was give me warped tunnel vision. I met each day with avoidance and suppression. I masqueraded my pain in attempt to forget the mess of a person I felt like I was.

But this isn't a story of just overwhelming pain. It's a testament to the strength it takes to overcome that pain.

I was broken in every sense of the word: with a cracked heart, mutilated trust, splintered esteem, crippled confidence, and a fractured sense of self. It took me awhile to realize broken wasn’t synonymous with a ruined life. It took me awhile to realize I was capable of picking up the pieces of myself by myself, little by little. So that’s what I did. I started finding splintered pieces scattered amongst my shadow and placed them together in a mosaic, rebuilding myself with resound strength.

One night, I realized the incredible strength that accompanies independence and the power that comes with self-love. It was late, almost 1 o’clock in the morning, but campus was comfortably quiet. The silence was like a blanketed cloak, and I spun around in it. I let the atmosphere swallow me in large gulps and I let the stars write my name a million times across a milky twilight sky. The brick buildings looked like the heart of a blood orange, the night cascading upon them in ebony shadows. The windows asleep, blue lights softly illuminating individual parts of the campus extending a hushed hand in emergency lights. The inflection of my footsteps along the pavement sang and in its tune I realized my veins were flowing unaffected red blood cells. My capillaries didn’t twist with poison, my heart wasn’t heavy from the weight of a tumor. My palms didn’t twitch aching for one more hardened touch to graze the curvature of my hips. My tongue wasn’t salivating in retraction from the nicotine in his teeth, the tobacco in his tastebuds. I was free. I didn’t miss him, and even more satisfying, I realized I didn't love him anymore. I loved me and I was happy.

And one day, even though I had to control my voice from wavering and clasp my hands in front of me to keep them from shaking, I was able to maintain, for the most part, a pleasant conversation with him. Even though my hands shook from the moment he walked away until the moment he left the dining hall I was working at, they were no longer trembling. Even though my heart was racing like thoroughbreds thundering around a track, it was at peace. Even though the sight of him still took away my breath momentarily, I was able to breathe easy once again. That same day I said to myself, “I don’t want to be angry anymore.”

I watched him from a distance thinking of what different people we are now, how vastly different we always were. I remembered the way he looked at himself in the mirror and the insecurity that was tattooed all over his body in invisible ink. I remembered how when he met, his own heart was still torn and hadn’t been given the time to allow its sinewy fibers to sew themselves back together. I remember the degrading slurs that sputtered from his mouth and reflected the bitterness flooding his mouth was a result of his dissatisfaction with his own self. I remembered the abuse and the blame I unnecessarily put on myself. I remembered it and no longer felt the abrasiveness of his words or his brazen touch. I recognized the fear and felt it melt away, dissipating with the safety of self-assurance. I peered from a distance, seeing a man I no longer know, noticing a boy who I never actually really knew.

Some may call writing and publishing this article on their internet courageous and some might think it’s foolish. Whatever you might think, I will not apologize for choosing to write and publish this article. I will not disclose the types or details of abuse I endured throughout and within my relationship, and frankly it doesn’t matter –– abuse is abuse regardless. The point is, this marble man with alabaster skin from which the abuse stemmed from, did not ruin my life.

I will never apologize for loving a person who many consider impeccably flawed and characterize as an antagonist in the plot of my life. I will never apologize for choosing to see the light inside of him despite all the darkness that tainted his disposition. I will never apologize for being so naively in love, for being blind to every damn red flag that set its post in front of my face.

I will never apologize for being in an abusive relationship –– because that’s exactly what it was –– and still loving him despite his manipulative behaviors and the pain he inflicted on my soul. I won’t apologize for no longer seeing him as a “bad guy” and asking others to stop envisioning him as the villain in the plot of my story. I won’t apologize for finally deciding to accept what happened between us and move on.

I will no longer apologize for finding the strength inside of me –– the strength I had been convinced he stole from me, but was silently existing within me the entire time. I won’t apologize for being able to walk with confidence in every stroke in my pace. I won’t apologize for the lightness in my heart and the self-esteem I’ve allowed to grow from a seedling, the self-esteem that is continually blooming. You won’t hear me say “I’m sorry,” for letting happiness swim through the veins in my body, almost a full year after a toxic relationship came to its finale. I won’t apologize for refusing to dwell. I won’t apologize for moving on.

I was once ashamed of myself –– ashamed of the person I was during my relationship and of the broken shell of the person I was following our breakup. I was embarrassed that I’d allowed myself to be mistreated and hurt. I made poor decisions. I took my friends for granted. I let myself become lost in barefoot footsteps on cold asphalt and the incessant chatter of the college bubble. I cracked myself further open to bleed. I bandaged my open wounds briefly and tore them off, giving them the ability to breathe. I allowed myself to heal on my own time. I made mistakes, that I won’t deny, but I also made some really great choices. I gathered a network of incredibly strong women as my closest friends and ultimately, my greatest supporters. I was once ashamed of myself, but I no longer am. I’m proud of myself and I’ve grown to enjoy my own company.

I ask you, don’t feel sorry for me. Don’t say, “Oh honey, I’m so sorry that happened to you.” Don’t think for a single second he took anything away from me. Don’t let a doubt, however small, slip into your thoughts. Let me tell you something about the man who ruined my life –– yes, he hurt me but he did not ruin my life. I know what I deserve. I am alert and aware of red flags and I know who I am. Nobody –– no man, no woman, not any person –– can take that away from me; I won’t let them.

Yes, it’s true the girl I was at eighteen fell hopelessly head-over-heels in love with a man who “ruined my life,” but that same man wouldn’t stand a chance with the woman I am today.