I got up out of bed. I went into the bathroom. I looked in the mirror. I saw the person he saw. I didn’t recognize that person. She was a shell. She had lost weight. Her eyes were swollen. Her eyes were empty. Her eyes were full of pain. I couldn’t look at her for long. It hurt to see.

Then there was a moment. The moment when I saw what I had been doing to myself. The cycle and recycle of try, try, trying again. Picking up the weight of two when I couldn’t even carry myself. Trying to forgive, trying to understand. Failure. Becoming someone else. Always me becoming someone else. Only succeeding in becoming the person he rejected because he made me into that person. So I would be easier to reject. So I would be easier to leave.

My strength was gone. And that is how I became the shell I was.

He left me. But it was only after I left myself.