Thank you for whisking me off my feet.
Thank you for becoming my ballroom dancing partner.
Thank you for suggesting we should practice the fox trot in the lounge of a residence hall, because this was when our romantic feelings began.
Thank you for wanting to treat me like a princess but not really knowing how.
Thank you for showing me the excitement of passionate sex.
Thank you for spoiling me with romantic gifts and surprises.
Thank you for showing me your true colors.
Thank you for being controlling and always needing to know where I was.
Thank you for yelling at me when you were angry, not knowing how to truly express your emotions.
Thank you for being emotionally abusive – by doing and saying things thatmade me believe I was worthless.
Thank you for suggesting we move in together last summer – for it was during these three weeks I realized I could no longer be in this destructively abusive relationship.
Thank you for holding me down and yelling at me when I would not
have sex with you – this gave me the strength to say goodbye to us.
Thank you for giving me the worst summer of my life.
Thank you for making tears flow like a faucet and my anger to rage.
Thank you for allowing me to endure this hardship only to realize (after many painful months) who I am – my new self.
Thank you for giving me fuel to go to counseling.
Thank you for providing me with this experience that snapped me out of the fairy tale world I lived in for 2 decades.
Thank you for helping me gain “jerk alert” because now I am
explicitly aware of people with artificial and insincere motives.
Thank you for making me realize I need to slow down in my interpersonal relationships so I do not let my heart get raped again.
Thank you for…
You know what?
I THANK MYSELF.
I thank myself for not allowing one jerk to ruin my life.
I thank myself for trusting my friends by allowing my ominous internal walls to stay down, so my angels could help me through this time.
I thank myself for not giving up on love, because now I am in love with the kindest man I have ever met — a man who treats me the way I deserve to be treated.
I thank myself for growing to become an even stronger and wiser person than I was when we met.
I thank myself for being me.
I thank myself for taking the power back.
I thank myself for moving from a victim to a survivor.
I thank myself for internalizing the idea that it is okay to show my
emotions – to be more than just happy – to embrace sadness, anger and disappointment because these feelings are on the road to healing.
I thank myself for making this mistake (realizing there will be many more) but NOW, now I am much stronger and wiser than ever before.
I THANK MYSELF.