We all see toxic and dangerous relationships play out in television and movies, and we always say "That'll never happen to me.". I know, I said the same thing. 1 in 3 women will be abused at some point in their life, abuse does not stop at physical. Whether it is emotional, psychological, sexual, or physical someone you may know or even you, may find yourself in the situation. Again, I know. I know all of this because I was the person stuck in a toxic relationship. I was a person stuck in a toxic relationship for far too long. Yes, my friends and family tried to tell me. No, I didn't listen. I loved this person, and this person was supposed to love me back. Looking back I realize, it was not love. We didn't love each other and the relationship should have ended way before it actually did. I tried to fix unfixable problems and an unfixable person. Maybe you think I'm just bitter about everything, but I'm not.

I wish I could say it wasn't all bad, but 99.99% of it was not good. Even before our relationship was a relationship there were signs that I ignored. The person I was with had a reputation, and I had heard about this after we started talking. But what does any girl who like a person this much do? I ignored the talk, I ignored the talk for months and months because I didn't want it to be true. Months into our relationship, the person had completely changed. I started being constantly asked where I was, who I was with, and what I was doing. I thought this was normal at first until I would be with family so I wouldn't use my phone, and my phone started blowing up with calls and texts asking what was happening, even if beforehand I had mentioned that I would be busy. If I asked him any of these questions, he would get shitty and tell me it was none of my business.

Things went from bad to worse. I had to ask permission to hang out with my friends. I had to have all my plans approved, even if as a couple we had nothing planned. He began getting jealous of my friends when I spent time with them instead of him. At one point he had convinced himself I was cheating on him and wasn't actually with my friends. And I'll admit this relationship made me grow distant from my friends, so I wouldn't have to fight with him about what I was doing.

As the relationship progressed, I moved away to college. I was only an hour away, so not that far. But his controlling got worse and so did his jealousy. He hated my friends here and hated when I did anything with them, again they were taking me away from him. He would come visit on weekends, and we did have fun. But when I got to college I realized that the situation we were in wasn't good, it wasn't healthy. It affected my grades here at school. One weekend sticks out in my mind specifically, there was a small party in my dorm with my close friends at the time, and he came over just like every weekend. We got into a fight in my kitchen and I told him we could talk about it later, when people weren't around, I went to walk away and he grabbed my wrist. Hard. I told him to let go of me, and he wouldn't. I just remember the bruise it left on my wrist and scared I was. Months later it happened again, except harder and he would not let go. We just stood in my room and I was screaming at him to let me go because it hurt. This time, I knew I was done. I couldn't stay in a relationship like this, because what if next time it wasn't my wrist? What if it was something more physical than just that. I finally called it quits

After leaving the relationship I found it so hard to trust someone I was romantically interested in. I was scared at the possibility that it could happen again, just with a different person. I became extremely guarded. This whole relationship has affected me in many ways. It's changed the way I view relationships, and how I feel about being in one. I'm pretty guarded when I get into a relationship now. I now understand my friends and family were worried. I don't ever wanna be back in a situation like that, and I do not wanna see my friends in a relationship like that either. I will always care for this person and wish him the best in life. If you find yourself in a situation similar to mine find help and get out.