Dear Ex,

I’ve been meaning to write you a letter for a while now, since it’s happened. I’ve found writing helps transferring the gooey mess of thoughts and pain from my head and heart to a place outside of my body. Unfortunately I can’t say that right now I am writing this for you, I think it is simply addressed to you. Coz it’s for me. Sometimes I wonder if the rest of the world’s broken-hearts also feel as if their thoughts are not actually thoughts, but rather, emotions; do they also feel as if they ‘think’ in emotion? Coz that’s how badly it hurts. My thoughts are no longer simple, and attempting to form cohesive or logical conclusions seems futile. I’ve been trying really hard. I’ve read every self-help, heart-healing fad there is to be found. Simple tasks have become strenuous for me and being alone in my bed at night or even worse, waking up and remembering everything, has been among the hardest of them. But it’s been a month now and I’m starting to identify my triggers. Each day, it becomes clearer to me why I’ve reached this point of change. I have realized that besides the fact that you lied to me for two years, and told me the truth a day after we had a long discussion about marriage, what triggers me the most is the way I view myself. I can make myself cry right now if I think to myself: “he did this to me, he lied, he said he couldn’t live without me; he should be the one who can’t get through the day without breaking down instead of having fun and getting on. He should be in pain. Not me.”

Because the truth is that our relationship started out by accident: you were an insecure boy who tried to get lucky with a confident, independent woman. As a matter of fact, that’s what you found attractive about me. And the truth is, I felt bad for you and stuck around. You kept telling me you didn’t know where you’d be without me; you’d never have grown as much if you didn’t have a strong woman like me around.

As time went by, I started questioning your sincerity. Some days I’d find myself wondering if you knew what it meant to love someone. I started noticing how you’d tense up when you mentioned your ex; when you mentioned your past. Two years passed by and I noticed I’d become dependent on the validation statement: “Baby you know you’re the only girl I need”. I needed to hear that coz I felt the exact opposite inside. But I’d put so much into this relationship. I’d lied to my parents for years. I snuck around. I used my friends. I forgave you when you cheated on me and never confronted you because you made me feel embarrassed and awkward bringing it up. I stayed with you when you put me second to your ego that always pushed you to do things to get validation from others. I stayed with you when all your actions told me, “You’re not enough for me; if you leave, I’ll need to find validation elsewhere”. I stayed with you when your insecurities began to eat me alive and your past that you hid from me started cropping up in weird places more and more frequently. I found myself shrinking, so I could fit in your shadow. You see, I think you got too cocky. Insecurities can do that to you funnily enough; they tell you that you need to be better than everyone else, because, of course, you are worthless. So you shrink and break those closest to you down so that they can be on your level. But that wasn’t enough for you. You wanted me beneath you. So by the time the truth was revealed to me, I was as weak as a baby. My body shook with unabridged pain in the night. I had thought I was the strong one. I took you under MY wing in the beginning. I was the one who had the power to hurt YOU. Even worse, I had even wondered if we would work out, coz I was often bored in your company. We couldn’t connect coz you didn’t know who you were and these were problems I thought about often, wondering if I should break it to you. But look where I found myself. It was as if the ground caved in from under my feet. And now I know cliche break-up-pain stories are cliche because they are so goddamn true. There truly exists no description fit to describe it. You were my first love. But it wasn’t real because it wasn’t love; it was dependency and attachment and toxicity and insecurity. It spread from you to me and festered in our relationship in the forms of jealousy, rage, I couldn’t breathe honestly. I tried so many times to explain it to you. To explain this slow effect our relationship had on me, and how I had brought the topic up a million times in the past but you made me believe it was nothing; I was just insecure. I’ve tried explaining it to my friends even and only a few get it but also not really. I feel as if I had been screaming the truth to myself for a year now, and because I never trusted my gut enough, it had to get to this point. I wanted nothing more than for you to understand what you did. Because you claim to want to fix things. But I guess I have to stop putting so much hope on that. I should have learnt by now that your promises are just to appease me. You said you wanted to be there for me but I was so weak that the only way you could be there for me was if you stopped living your life and you hold my hand as I walk, eat, breathe and sleep.

The worst thing you could have done was try move on with your own life. This was the worst time to confirm all my insecurities. But you did; you ran to your friends who really care so little about you, you submerged yourself in others’ company, caught up with old friends, and old crushes, got back on the scene coz that’s what you wanted. You really needed that attention. All my fears have been confirmed, which is not a hard thing for you to do to me in this scary, dark place. And I know you’d try convince me otherwise but this is my letter and this is my truth.

Recently my thoughts have been growing clearer and I notice that the times I breakdown crying are induced by a special kind of thought which I guess could be called ‘self-pitying’. I sometimes even envision scenarios where you tell me I meant nothing to you and confirm what I’ve been saying repetitively; that everything was a lie. Sometimes they’re more specific scenarios in which I imagine things that are actually probably true; I compare my situation right now with yours, where I’m obsessively replaying everything and you’re out at a friend’s birthday. This kind of thinking was happening so often, until yesterday when you told me it was unfair that I said I had been harming myself. You said it’s unfair for me to tell you that you are the reason I harmed myself. Because I’d always had this predisposition. I had shouted at you that you ruined me. You shouted back that I can’t blame everything on you and yes, you experience joy without me around and yes, you did something wrong but I need to stop blaming you for everything. Granted. I grant you that. Except, I do blame you for this. And I still wish you’d accept that. Although even if you did, I realize that you can’t fix me. Your love is so toxic and to pour more of that into the empty bits inside of me would be an even worse kind of self-harm. And I’m starting to think that things might seem unfair to me now coz you’re fine and I’m struggling, but I think that the thing that has always scared you about me is that I have depth of emotion as vast as the sea; and although that means I feel pain and despair more ten billion times more than you, it also means that I am capable of feeling more joy and happiness in one moment than you ever will in your entire life. It’s what I hated about you; you can’t feel. I read this this thing on Berlin Art Parasites website that I’d like to end this letter off with; I think it’s perfect:

“He was my first love. He was all I wanted but I’m glad he got away. He was a self-absorbed, attention-seeking boy who sucked the life out of you till he could. Then he left you to pick up the pieces yourself.
After months of pain and false hopes and anxiety, a part of me feels free. A part of me still hurts but I know that’s not going to last long. Memories still come crashing and make me break down from time to time but I know it’s for the best. No one should be anyone’s second priority. We get the love we think we deserve so why settle for someone who isn’t worth a second look. Why long for someone who didn’t think twice about hurting you.
First love is the hardest to forget but it teaches you more than any other experience in life.”