You give your heart with the expectation that the recipient will never leave your side, by choice or force. Falling in love is a euphoric experience, embodying joy, laughter, peace and pleasure. You feel your heart respond to the thought of them. You smile from the inside because the love you receive must, surely, be foundational to why we were created in the first place. 

You never see the first attack coming. You think, "What did I do wrong?" You scramble to fix it, to make it right, to make it better. You become obsessed with not letting it happen again. It does. You find yourself repeating the cycle of trying to make it right, fighting for that feeling when you first met to come back again.

What a tragedy, to think this love could ever end.   Abuse doesn't start on the first date. It is a gradual progression of toxicity, manipulation, and mental distress.  Our common denominator was that we wanted the best for those we loved and wanted them to love us back. We thought we could fix their broken pieces, cover up their mistakes, hide their assaults on our intelligence, our beauty, our well-being and bodies.

Our common denominator was our ability, our privilege, to choose our sanity over codependency. We found freedom. It was not easy, but we all decided that we no longer wanted to be the victim for somebody else's pain. 

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