For most of my 20s, I found myself in toxic situationships, one after another, hoping the next guy would be different.

I endured unhealthy relationships because I thought that was normal. I believed it was normal for guys not to respond for days, and the anxiety it caused within me was just a part of the dating scene. Not talking during a whole date, merely listening to the guy talk to himself, felt normal. I believed expressing my needs was too much and made me too needy because I thought being independent was cool. Instead, I suppressed all my needs and desires, ultimately shaming myself for having them. I gaslighted myself, thinking that any need was my issue to work through, rather than expecting him to change the way he showed up for me.

Instead of vulnerably putting myself out there, I chose to dim my feminine radiance because it felt safer than vulnerably feeling worthy and desirable enough for someone else to find me attractive. I blended in with the guys, talked and acted like them, and eventually faded into the background. I wasn't one of the guys, and I wasn't a girl they desired; I was just there, sitting with the pain of not being chosen again and again. I felt lonely, undesirable, far from feeling sexy, and lacked confidence in myself.

I deeply wanted to feel safe and chosen by a man, thinking it would make me sexier, more confident, love my body because he loved it, and ultimately feel a sense of aliveness that I couldn't feel without him.

So, I got into a relationship.

In the process, I lost myself. He chose me, just what I hoped for and dreamed of. He chose me from the moment he met me—so I went with it… even though every ounce of me knew it wasn’t right, (I literally wrote that in my journal the day we met).  However, the need to be desired and chosen trumped what my body was telling me, gaslighting myself, persuading myself that it was due to the lack of love I witnessed growing up. I not only stayed but moved to the UK to be with him. I left my dream, my life, for the illusion of love, validation, and being chosen and I feel like soooo many women have done this, gone along with a relationship because he chooses you. I am shouting 'N0 MORE! WE ARE DONE WITH THAT AMIRIGHT?!

After 9 months of dating, 5 of those months living together in England during lockdown, I was a shell of myself. From traveling solo, being nomadic, liberated, and free—the very things I thought would make me more alive drained me and depleted me of my own life force.

As I flew back to the states, I was only half the woman I was when I realized all this time I was searching for aliveness, love and good sex outside of myself. For the first time, I had to find it within. I had to choose myself.