That Time I Was in a Toxic Relationship (reflections #11)
I was eighteen, and I would have sworn I was in love.
But, was love supposed to be inconsistent, painful, and confusing? And could I truly love someone else if I didn’t yet love myself?
I started dating my first boyfriend—let’s call him Calvin—when I was a senior in high school. This feels significant, because this was the year when all the boys who raped me were finally out of my school. If the other years of high school were a frozen tundra, the beginning of my senior year had hints of the sun starting to peek out. I began to feel free, but I was still very vulnerable. I hadn't yet learned that love could come from within, so when Calvin pursued me, I fell hard and fast.
Calvin and I had gone to school together our whole lives, but it wasn’t until senior year that he suddenly became ever-present, always around, always making me laugh. He would find me in the hallway and walk me to my next class. Unlike so many others, he didn’t ignore me. He sought me out, and that made me believe he really liked me. I had learned years earlier that it was dangerous to like someone more than they liked me. I thought Calvin was a safe bet.
How wrong I was.
There were red flags even before we started dating, but I ignored them. Or, if I’m to offer myself compassion, I was naïve. I trusted his words over what was right in front of me. When we met, he was sleeping with someone else, selling drugs, constantly in trouble, and known for his temper. But, I saw him as misunderstood—just like me—and turned a blind eye to the signs that he wasn’t the boy I convinced myself he was.
He shared his secrets and insecurities with me, which I mistook for vulnerability. But looking back, it feels like just another one of his games. The more empathy I gave, the deeper his hooks sank. We were both carrying trauma, both familiar with physical violence, and I thought that made us the same. But Calvin was the first person to teach me that sometimes the abused become the abuser.
As quickly as the romance began, it twisted into something out of a nightmare. It was like he struck a match and my whole world went up in flames. The power I thought I had was stripped from me, and I was in an endless cycle of trying to prove my worth, and the second I felt stable, he made sure to knock me down again with criticisms and lies.
This became a constant theme in our relationship: me apologizing, me taking the blame for things that weren’t my fault. If he canceled plans, I was being too needy. If he lied about where he was, I was a controlling girlfriend. If he broke a promise, it was because I had put too much pressure on him. If he screamed at me, I had deserved it. Somehow, everything was always my fault. I lived on edge, constantly trying to keep the peace.
People tried to warn me, but I was under his spell. I didn’t just like this guy. I needed him. When we were good, I was on cloud-nine, and when we were bad, I was in the depths of hell. I had hopped upon a ride that I didn’t know how to get off of. I was addicted to the highs and also to the lows. When I was high, my world was safe and I felt loved, when I was in the lows I was frantic to get back to the safety and love I was so desperate to feel. I had not yet learned that true love starts within.
Throughout these months we dated, I changed. The freedom I felt at the beginning of the year vanished. Unlike the boys who raped me my freshman year, this predator liked to drag out the kill, rather than do it all at once. He liked the game of it. I think he got off on making me believe that I was the crazy one. He pretended to be protective, but was actually possessive. I slowly became an object, not a human with real feelings. It would take me another decade to understand that this is what it was like to date someone with narcissistic traits.
The beginning of the end was the first display of public toxicity.
It was right before graduation and we had a senior cruise. My classmates and I boarded a boat in the Boston Harbor. On the boat, I tried to approach Calvin, but as I did, he scoffed at me and aggressively stormed off. He was mad at me again. What had I done wrong?
I knew not to approach him, so I found friends on the lower deck. We inhaled helium and talked in funny voices. We acted like goofy teenagers. I was happy… until Calvin found me. He walked by me and threw me nasty looks. I became riddled with anxiety. My crime was having fun without him.
At the end of the night, my nervous system was on edge. We took a silent bus ride back from Boston Harbor. I sat with a friend, while Calvin stared at me with pure hatred the whole time.
I exited the bus and started walking to my car when someone started screaming at me at the top of their lungs. I turned around and saw Calvin screaming, “You fucking bitch, you should die.”
I fully dissociated.
I felt as though I watched the rest of the experience from twenty feet away. Calvin screamed at me as I sobbed my eyes out and tried to get to my car. He grabbed my arm and yanked me towards him as he continued to verbally lash me in front of teachers and classmates. Eventually two friends grabbed me and formed a protective shield. I guess all the adults present couldn’t hear the ear-splitting screams being thrown my way.
I finally got in my friend’s car and we drove away as Calvin kicked the car and continued to scream obscenities. I’m not sure if I returned to my body that night. That’s where the memory ends.
I wish I could say this is when our relationship ended. But it wasn’t. We got back together a couple days later. He apologized. I forgave him like I always did. I was stuck in a cycle. But, for the first time, I was embarrassed to be with him. Before this moment, the turmoil of our relationship had lived behind closed doors. Now it was out in the open. The mask we created together began to crack.
We lasted for another three months, but things unraveled quickly. I became more manic. He screamed and lied more. I kept trying to leave but was always lulled back into his web. I would have these moments of seeing the relationship clearly, but I always allowed him to talk me into giving him another chance. I continued to trust his words over my own instincts. When had I learned that the words of others were more valid than what my body was telling me?
I finally broke free of this trance when he dumped me during my second week of college – when I was in the hospital. He told me I was clingy and annoying. I lay there alone, hooked up to morphine, and abandoned by the boy who was supposed to love me.
I wept in the hospital bed. A nurse came in and upped my dose of morphine thinking that my tears were over physical pain, not from a broken heart.
I turned on the TV and the Disney Pixar movie Up! was on. The opening montage – scenes of a couple in love throughout the years – began to play. I cried hysterically. It finally clicked. This was love, small moments shared across a lifetime, not whatever Calvin and I had. It was not highs and lows. It was not chaos and cruelty. It was stable, kind, and grounded. In that moment, something shifted. I knew I deserved better. For the first time in my life, I wanted more for myself. This was my first act of self-love.
I left the hospital and stayed with Calvin for a few more weeks. The spark was gone—my obsession with him had been replaced by self-disgust. But I was still terrified to break up with him. I had seen his anger. He had placed his hands on me. I felt trapped. Not knowing how to end it, I began dating someone new. Calvin screamed at me, and harassed me online for months, but he eventually gave up. I was free of him physically, but the impact of this relationship continued to haunt me emotionally and psychologically for years.
It was only through learning to love myself that I began to unravel the lies I had internalized throughout my relationship with Calvin. Only then could I trust myself again. Now, I have a love like the one in Up!—gentle, grounded, and filled with small, steady moments of connection, care, and true love.
