Weekly:Emily

Emily, Emily, Emily my pudding cup, bundle of joy, ray of sunshine, angry elf, b**** for life!! I have seen this girls life change right in front of my very eyes over the last year and a half. She has grown, made new friends, found love and most of all started to find happiness. I love watching her go about life because I promise you she has evolved so quickly into this brand new woman who is true to herself and not the same girl that she was when I first met her. I would not even recognize that girl today. For today, I gave her the following prompt: "How has your life changed after getting out of a toxic relationship, creating new friendships and finding love again?" Here is what she shared with me! :) Thank you Em <3

"In relationships self love and self respect can play some of the biggest roles in how you treat each other. The way you value yourself directly will be reflected by your partner in the way they value and treat you. My first real long term relationship was in high school with a boy I thought was amazing. When I met him he was a sweet family oriented person who I thought would be a good match for my downfalls and all that cheesy stuff. However, as our relationship went further on he became more and more controlling, but I didn’t see it. It happened so slowly in the beginning with small things that I didn’t think twice about, then all at once it was consuming. As the relationship progressed he gained more power over me, taking away my relationships with close friends which made it so I would have no one but him. At this point my self love and self value was basically non-existent and my entire life revolved around making choices that wouldn’t make him mad. Even normal tasks like going to the grocery store had to have an explanation and made me feel like I was doing something wrong. Crazy brings out crazy and my realizing point was when I realized neither of us are in a place where we’re happy together and want to be in each others presence. Getting out of a controlling relationship that your life revolves around is not an easy thing. At this point I had pushed all of my close friends away and barley spoke to friends I grew up with and was talking to everyday. So, I was alone. Feeling complexly alone is part of a healing process that everyone does have to go through I think. Being alone allows you to actually realize what you need from someone in your life and how freeing it is when you realize how badly your own life was taken from you. That is exactly what happened to me, my life was taken from me.

Bringing back relationships I pushed away was one of the hardest things to start to do because I basically was MIA for 3 years of their life and I felt guilty and ashamed of it. Unconditional love is something I never experienced in my relationship, but with my friends that I had so badly pushed away it was there. It was like nothing even happened and everything went back to normal after about a week. I didn’t become very close to Jordan, Gianna, and Chloe until after my breakup. It would be random conversations in class but that was about the extent. I don’t remember exactly how I started to come into the group that they had, but it just kind of happened and I’m so thankful that it did. They are the people who helped me realize that everything in my relationship was completely wrong and it was not what someone deserves. Jordan has a 40yr old stressed out mother complex, to her that only comes out when the people she loves around her are struggling and she will worry day and night about them. So I think I turned into her new project. Slowly, with them, I learned what real unconditional love felt like and how it’s supposed to feel to be completely loved.

Then he came into my life. A new and fresh person. I am a firm believer that once you begin to feel happy and content with yourself that someone will come into your life that will add to it even further. I wasn’t looking for someone new after I got out of my last relationship for obvious reasons but, he just appeared. In middle school I dated his best-friend and that’s how we met and we were always friends in classes through high school, but I never really thought anything else of him. However, he randomly was home from school around the time that the breakup happened and he was friends with the people I had started hanging out with again. We started catching up and just instantly clicked again. It was effortless and I didn’t realize it was happening until we talked for a few weeks and then he went back to school from break and I missed him. I was surprised and I didn’t expect to miss someone so much and so suddenly. Timing is a funny thing. About a week after he went back up to school he randomly decided to come home and leave school. We both were at low points in our life and I think we just needed each other. Eventually, we ended up together almost every day and we would just laugh and have the best time together doing nothing. Coming out of a controlling relationship made me very insecure about every single thing about getting to know someone again and letting myself actually trust that the same thing wouldn’t repeat. But he made it easy, anytime I would show insecurities that I would have he would instantly reassure me and make them go away completely. Being with someone who makes you the happiest that you’ve ever been in life is a really scary but an amazing thing. I thought I was in love in the first relationship, but I know now that that wasn’t love it was possessive and unhealthy. The love that I have right now is unconditional and always felt. No matter what else is going on in our lives we put each other first and it’s simple. Even a year later I still want to be around him all the time and constantly kissing and saying I love you, like it should be. I put myself in this flawed relationship for three years and I can look back now, and see that what I have now is real and my past does not define me. I live a real life now, a life that I want to live, where I am free to be myself while being loved by someone at the same time. My new love makes me happy and I can't express the undying peace of mind I have now found. This is the love that I hope each of my friends can experience in their lives. Just easy, fun, and happy."