How My First Love Left Me Traumatized
“If you stop thinking about your depression, it will go away by itself,” he said.
I was a relationship virgin for 21 years before I met my first boyfriend. I only had one date, five serious crushes, and one unrequited love interest before I harbored my heart into my first-ever relationship journey.
Since I had zero experience with boys in the past, so everything from the first date to holding hands was novel to me.
I was smitten by him of the fact that we connected a lot through our conversations. I never talked this much to someone in my life. I couldn’t stop smiling when we talked and it felt like time slipped by without us noticing.
Every time we spent time together, I couldn’t handle my feeling. I could feel my stomach lurching and my heartbeat thumping like crazy. The thought of him occupied my mind every single second without rest.
I could see our future together.
Urgh, just writing that sentence nearly makes me barf. Here is the reason why I am still traumatized by my “first love”.
1. Was it a discussion or a debate competition?
We never communicated. We did talk every time we had a conflict, but only words came out. Nothing was conveyed and there was no solution to the problem.
I was straightforward and he was not. I loved to arrange my facts systematically and argue my point like I was presenting a case in court. But he found it bothersome to discuss things. He loved to “let things flow”.
To this day I don’t know what that means. To be honest, I still don’t know how he communicates.
We are simply too different.
Our conflicts never got solved as we never communicated properly.
2. “If you stop thinking about it, your depression will go away by itself.”
There were way too many red flags to the point that I need to write a separate article for it. But one of the most severe ones is the way he diminished my mental health problem into “something in my head”.
Technically, he was right. Depression is caused by a chemical imbalance — that is correct. But he totally didn’t mean it that way.
I was depressed, and I am always open about that. Naturally, I also spoke to him about my feeling. It was the time when I often experienced depressive episodes and it was not easy to control them.
Feelings of worthlessness surrounded my head each day. An empty feeling would show up on my face in a form of sadness. I often cried in front of him.
His response to my feeling astonished me.
“If you stop thinking about it, it will go away by itself.”
It was simply disgusting.
3. The nonstop breakup cycle
Time machine might not exist yet, but I think the voice in our head is an example of time-bending.
In the fourth month of the relationship, I heard a voice in my head telling me to leave. It was as if my future self came to me to warn me about the heartwrenching fate the future awaiting.
Yet I didn’t listen.
I was holding onto something that was already broken. Every time we broke up, I assured myself that we could fix it. But you know the outcome.
4. Losing myself to someone that was not worth it
Our circumstances were uncommon as we lived on the “base camp”. We lived in the same house with other people.
It was a weird situation to navigate and certainly not easy to separate the moment when you want to be vulnerable but also professional.
For the one to two months in the early relationship, we absolutely loved it. However, I became too obsessed with him and most of my time would be spent with only him.
I must have appeared like a child starving for attention. I was jealous whenever he was with his coworker. I didn’t even care about my own work and neglected my relationship with friends.
I lost myself for him. My life purpose was only to be with him and nothing mattered.
Alas, we quickly got fed up with each other presence and it was easy to be irritated by one small mistake. We disrespected each other and we argued too much, often in the presence of other people.
We were what people call, “a toxic couple”.
Being in love doesn’t mean that you need to spend all of your time together. Have a life separately outside the relationship.
I don’t know when will I start another romantic journey because the last one was too much. I still got an “allergic reaction” whenever I thought about it.
Here are some other articles that you may find interesting:
Honey, You Should Break Up With Your Boyfriend
Do Women Have An Expiration Date?
I am feeling lost and I can’t take it anymore.
Thank you for stopping by!
