developmental psych essay two

I don’t really believe that one event has completely defined who I am, although I am a lot different after the two and a half year relationship I was in. In November 2005, I starting dating a boy named Alex. Alex was definitely the life of the party, and he was absolutely adorable. The first time I met him, one of his friends pointed out the tattoo on his upper back which was Foo Fighters lyrics “if anything could ever feel this good forever, if anything could ever be this real again” and underneath it, his mom’s name with her birth and death year. I was smitten. I remember the night he officially asked me to be his girlfriend; I sat in my room and forced myself to realize that I was setting myself up to get hurt. Surely, he did hurt me and two months later I found out he had cheated on me. At this point, we had already exchanged I love you’s, and even though I was only fifteen, I really did love him. It was something out of a really sad movie, I called him over and he denied it until I just told him to tell the girl to stop saying things like that. A couple minutes later he comes running back in my room with tears rolling down his face and that beautiful head of hair all messed up like he had been running his fingers through it for hours, telling me that it’s true, that he did do this to me. I had always told myself I would never ever put up with something like that, so I broke up with him. After weeks of presents and notes left on my bed and flowers sent to my high school, I gave in and got back together with him. The next year was good, minus the minor break ups and jerk-like tendencies of his. About a year and a half into our relationship I find out that it’s happened again and this time, with someone I considered a friend. This instance, it wasn’t as severe a cheating as the first time, and we were on one of our ritualistic break ups already so I was spared another nasty confrontation filled break up. About two months later, when we’re back together and it happens again, this time with a childhood friend of mine. I was a seventeen year old basket case. Every night I cried myself to sleep and every day I was faking sick or asking my mom to call me out of school, only to come home and cry in the room that I had filled with him. I was determined to fix this boy, no matter how many times my heart was just absolutely crushed. I gave him chance after chance, each time with an open mind that things were different, and they were, for a little while. Seven months ago I realized that he was treating me like I was the one who had been dishonest and unfaithful so many times. He texted me all day, every day and when I wouldn’t respond quick enough or even when I did, I would get the usual 21 questions about who I was with, how I knew these people, what I was doing, what we were planning on doing, etc. He made fun of me in front of his friends and was an absolute sweetheart when we were alone. I didn’t have any male friends because he didn’t like that. I got tired of not trusting him, of hearing stories of his “infidelities” only to find out later that the stories weren’t true. Everyone was out to get us, everyone wanted to see us crash and burn. I was done with him trying to control me and the things I did, especially when he had not a single reason not to trust me. I was done with him being mean to me to try to look cool in front of a crowd, I was done with him drinking excessively and being terrified he would become the same drunk of a father I had, yelling at my mother and slapping her around. I was done with being so sad and feeling so broken every day. Looking back, I feel like it was an addiction. We never stayed broken up for more than a month, and every time I would say “No, really, this is it. I’m done.” So, I’ve been sober for almost eight months and I am the happiest I have ever been in my entire life. Throughout all this, I’ve learned to stay positive and stop focusing on negative things, and to live with an open mind and not pass judgment, because you never know how to handle a situation until you’re actually in it. Now, I can’t stand to be around people with a negative vibe, or involved in a conversation where people are just being mean or hateful. Now, I absolutely dread commitment and would rather hang out with my best friends than do anything else with anyone else and I am so much more social than I have ever been. Now, I can’t imagine ever going back to something like that, to living the way I was. I don’t regret being with him- I’m glad that he taught me all those life lessons, I just wish they hadn’t come at me so fast. I couldn’t just let him string me along until he found himself. I was tired of putting so much energy into hating him. So I forgive him. I forgive him for every horribly, awful, traumatizing thing he has done to me, but I’ll never forget it.