Letter 6: To the First Person I Said "I Love You" To

To the first person I said “I love you” to,

I won’t call you my first love, because in the 4 years since cutting you out of my life, I’ve learned that what we had wasn’t love. A product of a Catholic upbringing, I was a truly naive and innocent girl when we met. Just what you were looking for. Your perfect victim. Your perfect game to play.

I’ll never forget when you first found out that I was a virgin. When you told me that it was your mission to change that. No matter how long it took, it was going to be you. Looking back, that was my first red flag. I should’ve run right then and there, but I don’t know if it was my ability to see the good in everyone or my desperate desire to be loved that made me stay.

I’ll never forget when you told me I was a bad girlfriend. That good girlfriends bought their boyfriends little presents to show them they were thinking of them. That I didn’t know this because you were my first, so you’d forgive me as long as I changed. From that moment on, every night that I spent at your college apartment, I would stop at the Rite Aid on the way from my dorm and buy you something. Chocolate, Gatorade, ice cream, you name it. Probably should’ve been my second red flag.

I’ll never forget when I told you I loved you and you wouldn’t say it back. When you told me that you couldn’t love me until we had sex. When I told you I couldn’t have sex until I knew you loved me. It was a stalemate that eventually you lost, although looking back I don’t believe you ever truly loved me. Third red flag.

I’ll never forget when every time we had sex, you would rank my performance on a scale of 1-10. When all I wanted was to please you but you caused me so much anxiety that even just the sight of you caused panic attacks so bad I would pass out and wake up with no recollection of what had happened. I’ve lost count of how many red flags at this point.

I say it wasn’t love because love isn’t manipulative. It doesn’t take and take without ever giving. It doesn’t blame the faults of the relationship on only one party. It doesn’t in the end reveal that you weren’t even the only one all along.

I mourn for my 19, 20, and 21 year old self. I mourn for the years my relationship with my mom suffered because of you. I mourn for the years my relationship with my friends suffered because of you. I mourn for the years my relationship with myself, my understanding of my self-worth, suffered because of you. I mourn for my loss of innocence, of identity, and of purpose. But, I am also grateful for the pain my old self went through. Because I came out on the other side, a stronger version of myself. I came to the most profound realization, that I still carry with me to this day: that in this life, I am the only one who will be with me from the moment I am born until the moment I die. No one can ever take me away from me and how freaking empowering is that!?

For a while, I lost my ability to see the good in everyone and everything. I thought the reason I got hurt was because I loved too much. After losing you, the world got very, very dark. But through the years and with lots of love and support, I realized that you’re not worth another second of my time. You’re not worth giving up on love. I don’t hate you. It takes just as much energy to hate as it does to love, and you’re certainly not worth that energy. You’re not worth losing sight of all the beauty this world has to offer. Because lemme tell ya, it has to offer a lot. I’ll never lose sight of that. The gift I was given, of loving so damn hard, is a beautiful, beautiful gift. Because love is a beautiful, beautiful thing. That’s how I know what we had wasn’t love.

You taught me all the lessons I never wanted to learn. You took away a lot of my firsts. But in spite of all that, today I stand, at 25 years old, happy, full of life, in love, and most important of all, living. You’ll never be able to take that away from me.

Sincerely,

Anonymous

**As a note, abuse isn't always physical. Please find a safe way to talk to someone and to get help.""

https://www.thehotline.org/identify-abuse/