I did it before. I can do it again.

I loved Steve. It was an unhealthy love, an insecure love, an immature love, but it was still love. He was my first serious boyfriend. That meant that he taught me a lot about love. He taught me that love meant that he was supposed to be the only person in my life - he cut me off from friends, from my support center. He taught me that he was right and I was wrong. He taught me that I was supposed to do what he said. He taught me that I deserved to be punished when I didn't listen to him (he never actually hit me, and he never explicitly threatened me, but he never seemed in control and his body language and reactions were enough). He taught me that I should be afraid to make him mad. He taught me that I was stupid, that I didn't deserve to go to college or accomplish anything. He taught me that this is what love was. Because I was so entrenched in the relationship, when it ended I had no idea how to live in the real world. Everything I'd known had crumbled around me, and I didn't know what to do. Then when I'd realized that the relationship was abusive, the world really crumbled, since it wasn't just losing the person I'd grown accustomed to, but my whole understanding of love, of trust, of care, of what I deserved, was suddenly very different. And so the easiest thing to do - the thing that made the most sense - I blamed love. I said no more - I didn't need a guy, I was going to do everything on my own. Nobody else.