The Doubt.

Lately, emotions have been on one end of the spectrum for a moment, and the next moment I’m on the opposite end.

My favorite phrase: “olen sekaisin”

Which translates from Finnish to English: “I am a mess.”

I’m currently living outside of Helsinki, Finland at a seaside home. I go to the sea to find peace. Back at uni, I would take a short walk to Lake Michigan. The water has always calmed me. It’s Mother Nature’s free therapy.

Doubt… I feel doubt when it comes to love. We’re about to get real honest here folks. I have never had a personal relationship that was healthy for my mental or physical well-being. I have met parents of close friends that seem to be a fairy tale to me. Not in the sense that everything is always OK, but that they are together through sickness and in health, for richer or poorer. It’s the love that I dream about.

With no prior history of a healthy and happy love, I have been succumbed to the idea that love is existent but in a few circumstances. I believe in love between a mother and her child, a women to a man, and a man to another man. I just can’t believe in a love meant for me.

I have heard of other people’s views on the idea of marriage, some can’t wait till the day it happens and others hope to never attend. I was the girl who started on Pinterest with a “wedding board” and now I’ve again wrestled with the idea of commitment. I will not be getting married any time soon, obviously, I’m not even in a relationship. However, how can I ever get into the first steps of a relationship when I have this fear of commitment?

I never wanted to fall into the trap of the girl with “daddy issues” but I did. My mother separated from my father when I was just a toddler. I still have a decently close relationship with him, on the level of small talk and arguments over politics. My mother quickly gave into the attention of another man’s love. Soon they had their first child and met at the courthouse to be married. Rumor has it he missed the first time. I wasn’t there. It was already a mental struggle dealing with the idea of divorced parents. I was hearing one side of the story from my father and a completely opposite story from my mother. As a child, it only led to confusion and outbursts of anger. I refused to call my knew step-father “dad”, only adopting the nickname “GG”. Eventually, he became the father-figure in my life. Once the young, naive child version of myself gave him my trust, my childhood was gone. I lived in a palace, surrounded by financial security, a good education, and fabulous trips. There is a saying, “there’s no such thing as a free lunch.” Whoever said that, you’re right. This luxurious lifestyle came with a price that I did not ask for. If I could go back in time, I would have refused the gifts and trips for a new life. This man, the man I referred to as my dad, did not see me as his daughter, but as the property he now owned along with my mother. Power and greed had become his drug. With his money and ego, he believed that he could do anything he pleased. I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. But that story will come eventually…

As a girl who has struggled with her mental health the past few years, it was triggered two and a half years ago by a boy that I thought I loved with my whole heart and soul. Scratch that, I did love him with my whole heart and soul. He was my first love, someone I had known for years before. It seemed like our story was something special. The new boy who came in the seventh grade, I remembered the first time I talked to him, yet I had the biggest crush on his best friend. I paid no attention to him at first till he asked me to our winter formal, the Snow Dance. Through the years we kept in touch, I told him my secrets and he kept them safe. Out of the blue he invited me to his basketball game. That started it. Soon it was a few dates during out junior year of high school, soon turning into more. The night of New Year’s Eve, a group of my closest friends spent the night while her parents were away. I had never been as nervous as that night. A wall had shot up, I thought I had no feelings for him at all and I felt uncomfortable. Looking back at it now, it was due to my past. But the nerves turned into butterflies. He took my breathe away. For so long I wished for my first kiss, my first love, and he was standing right there in front of me. It seemed like everything was perfect in my little world of text messages, Snapchat, and weekend hangouts (due to our “long-distance”). Soon, just after the “honeymoon period” was coming to an end and I experienced my first time with the boy I loved, he switched. That same greed and ego I was so familiar with was seen in his eyes. I didn’t realize at first, but I was the star of the classic emotionally abusive relationship.

For your information, here are a few signs of an emotionally/mentally abusive relationship are:

1. name-calling
2. refusal of trust, acting jealous/possessive
3. isolating you from friends and family
4. monitoring whereabouts and communications
5. demanding to know your whereabouts constantly
6. trapping you at home, unable to leave
7. punishing you by withholding affection
8. damaging your property
9. humiliation
10. blaming you for abuse
11. gaslighting (You’re crazy — that never happened.”
    “Are you sure? You tend to have a bad memory.”
    “It’s all in your head.” You end up questioning your own reality. If so, your partner may be using what mental health professionals call “gaslighting.”)
12. accusations of cheating
13. cheating intentionally to hurt you, blame you, or show their worthiness
14. attempting to control your appearance
15. telling you how lucky you are to be with them

If you, or anyone you know needs help, contact 1–800–799-SAFE (7233) for the National Domestic Violence Hotline.

Sadly, I have experienced most of these acts. I became emotionally and mentally drained. I was not who I used to be, and I will never go back to the girl I was before. If it wasn’t for close friends and family that stuck by my side to push me to see, I don’t know where I would be today.

These acts triggered my past, which led to a very unpleasant first semester of college. This past year at uni, I learned a lot about myself. I sought out help for my mental health. I never realized the importance of therapy and mental health awareness. I still struggle. As you read from the title, I have my doubts about love. I realize there is love out there. Maybe one day there will be a man that will actually love me, I will be involved in a healthy relationship. As for now, I fear that I will either play the role of my mother/grandmother and shut out any type of commitment and chance at love, or I will act like my aunt, afraid of becoming my mother, and let in an evil and unhealthy “love”.

One day… I hope it will come. But for now, I will not wait on the love of a man to satisfy me. I need to focus on self-love.

“Really, at the end of the day, the only thing you can control is yourself; the only person you can truly education is yourself. You have to redefine what beauty is to you so you can’t be affected by what people are saying.” Rupi Kaur, an idol.

I’m (almost) 20 & nowhere close to fabulous.