After my breakdown I built myself up better than I'd ever been before. I was taken right down below my foundations, and so, this me, is entirely new. Yet in a way, this is the version of me I was born to become. Without the negative influences and hurtful comments I learned how to blossom more naturally. A breakdown is a road of glass shards, it is. Yet as each day passes they cut a little less, until one day they are as bottles made into gems by the sea. Their edges are gone. Upon them the sunshine glows. No more do you send out these SOS messages in bottles, yet rest upon the beach and see a serene paradise.
There is a kind of broken person that seeks love in a relationship and then uses that person as their stress relief. They keep them close then strike out with force. It is their way of venting. And so if this happens to you, if you are their "most precious" and their punching bag (verbally or physically) - get out. Get out before the breakdown comes, because recovery from such things takes a very long time.
Gaslighting leads to breakdowns. The push and pull from meanness to loving rocks your boat until capsize. When you are too weak to climb back in or swim a yard... that is your breakdown... and it's rough.
The breakdown was so long ago. I'm one of the lucky ones. I recovered. I am a different person now, also the same person, I guess that's what it is to mature and grow. I am confident, happy and self assured. I realise my self worth. I can protect my core and protect those I love. After then stormy seas of the breakdown, I am sailing in open waters under a friendly sky. From this place of feeling safe and well, I'm glad it happened. I'm glad I went through that hell so that I could have a chance of heaven in this lifetime.
I had for so long been the only source of positivity, of warmth and emotional comfort. I had for so long taken the brunt of cruel outbursts designed to bring my self esteem to zero, to shatter my sense of self worth. After that I was expected to rebuild all the relationships from all sides, to make any sacrifices necessary and then recreate the positive atmosphere... still against that critical and cynical wall of sneering superiority that has become a woven part of who you are. So that I had a breakdown, that I shattered into a person barely capable of surviving is on you, and the credit for rebuilding myself belongs to me. And now I move onwards fully able to choose to be with positive and giving people, with those that are truly good for me.