I want to start this off by saying thank you to everyone who participated in helping me with this article. Thank you for sharing your stories with me and anyone else who reads this, it means a lot. I created this collection of people's stories to show that happiness and love can be found even in the darkest of times. It may be rough and you may not think you will get through it but I promise it does get better, you just have to have patience and hope.

The first story I am going to share is a really good friend of mine who wants to remain anonymous. This is her story:

I was in an abusive relationship for four seemingly endless years and my life was as bad as I could ever imagine. Two children, a husband that abused me in every way he could, that refused to work to help take care of us, and me who was not allowed to work or socialize with anyone including my own family and couldn’t even own a phone. My depression was so bad because of the endless abuse that I tried to end my life. Five months after that I decided I finally had enough and decided if he was going to hurt me bad enough to kill me I was at least going to die trying to leave. He found out what I was going to try and do and physically threw me out of the house in the middle of a storm with nothing but the clothes on my back. I found my way and started to move past the horrible things I had been through. I tried dating a few times but they would all somehow remind me of my ex and I never thought I’d find happiness again because my husband had stolen those parts of me. Finally, I started talking to my best friend from high school that I had always been extremely close with and there was a spark. It felt like seeing sunlight for the first time in years. We talked for over a year before even getting to see each other due to his job and over that time I became closer to him than I was with anyone else in my entire life. The moment I saw him again it’s like my world finally made sense, all the happiness I had been missing was instantly there and then some. I felt like nothing bad that I had been through mattered because I had so much good in my life again. I have been through hell in my life and I never once thought I would find happiness again. I hope that someday I would be happy and feel love for more than just my children again. I had fears that I would settle for the abuse I had grown accustomed to for so long, but every worry and every fear faded away and I stopped comparing everyone in my life to my ex. I began to live again. Coming into such happiness after darkness and depression is like removing the hand from your throat and finally getting that first big burst of oxygen, you take it all in knowing that at any moment you could choke on the good thing that your body has begged for yet you refuse to go back to gasping for air. Am I scared one day I’ll be unhappy, who can say they aren’t? but I don’t let that stop me from living, loving, and breathing after all these years. I deserve happiness, I deserve love. I deserve respect. I deserve to love me. I am beautiful and now I finally know it because of the man that freed me from the darkness another man put me in.

Here is another person’s story:

When I was 17, I was in a relationship with the manager at my work. It started out fantastic. He was amazing, always supportive of every decision I made, even when I decided to join the military which meant I would be leaving home. He wasn’t physically abusive, but he was emotionally and verbally. He would control who I hung-out with (which was mainly him), who I would talk to, text, and if I didn’t do what he said he would call me a bitch, or a whore. He would accuse me of cheating. If I wouldn’t have sex with him, he would guilt me into doing it, saying if I loved him, I would do it. And I thought I loved him, so I would. Little did I know, that is considered rape. I finally broke it off about a month before I went to boot camp.

I found happiness again when I realized I needed to figure out who I was and who I wanted to be. I focused on myself. I changed a lot when I joined the military, and I continue to change. I did a lot of self-reflection. Before I left for boot camp, I was dating one of my best friends. We had dated previously, and he meant the world to me. I am currently married to a wonderful man, who is neither of them. However, I can honestly say, that I am happy. My happiest moment after leaving that horrible man, was when I realized that thinking about it, and talking about it, no longer affected me like it used to. Happiness is tricky, because it’s a feeling. What makes you happy? Never lose sight of that, and you’ll always be happy. Like I am.

Now I will share with you my story. When I turned 18 I immediately got married to the man I had been dating for less than a year, we had two beautiful boys together. We were married for five years, it was not all bad but we fell apart from each other and the emotional abuse I was receiving was not something I could deal with anymore. I got tired of feeling worthless and that I didn’t matter to anyone. I hated myself, life and everything in it. I am sure you can use your imagination on how things went from there. The only option I had left was to leave, so I did. I left and we filed for divorce. I had relationships after that but they were short lived and I was never truly happy, I accepted the way I was treated and just went with it. I fell into a deep depression and struggled to just make it through every day. I finally came to my senses and decided I wouldn’t settle anymore, I would just be patient and wait for the right person to come along and that I needed to focus on me and my boys. Sure enough it happened for me, I finally found someone who makes me truly happy. Words really cannot describe how he makes me feel. I have better self-esteem and confidence because of him, when he tells me I am beautiful, cute, pretty, or gorgeous I say thank you and know that he means it. I have never had someone look at me the way he does. I can tell he really does mean everything he says. Being with someone who you feel like you have known your entire life is surreal. I don’t have to struggle every day to find reason to continue on, it’s not just that he is my reason but he makes me realize that there is so much more to continue on for and I have so much more to do with the rest of my life then to just sit in depression. I have never felt so safe and comfortable with someone before, I can be completely myself and not have to worry about him judging me because I know he loves me for who I am. The feeling I get when he looks at me is inexplicable, it is amazing to connect with someone on the level that me and him do. I am finally in a relationship that I feel respected and that the person I am with is proud to have me as his girl. I have never just looked at someone and felt such emotion. I have finally found my person and I will never let that go, finding this real love with someone is one of the best feelings.

What I am trying to show is that it does get better. No one, male or female should be treated in a way that makes them feel less than the amazing person they are. Don’t stand for it, you are worth so much more.