Getting Out of a Bad Relationship: What Helped Me Finally Choose ME by Jessica Lawrence

Four years ago, a mother drove two and a half hours south of her home. She woke up her daughter one morning and told her to pack a bag for herself, and her own daughter, as they were going north for one week. How do I know this story? Because it's mine.

My mother, Sharon, took my daughter and I to her house for one week. I like to think of it now as the week that changed everything. You see, I was in a very bad place, mentally. I hardly ate, I hardly slept and I was days away from being suicidal.

My mother told my husband (now ex) to not contact me. She let my daughter call him off her cell phone. I did a lot of thinking that week. When I returned back to my house, I knew it was time to quit delaying the inevitable. After that, the pretending stopped. Family dinners stopped. Grocery shopping for three turned into grocery shopping for one adult and one toddler. I remember realizing that I mattered. My happiness mattered. My mental health mattered. The constant walking on eggshells and being complacent was being kicked to the curb.

What a long, strange four years it has been since.

Choose yourself.

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