Remembering my first toxic relationship.
Do you remember your first love? Chances are, the relationship was full of drama and unhealthy behaviors.
Mine certainly was.
I was nineteen, yet I had barely scratched the surface when it came to living. I wasn’t looking for love.
In fact, I had sworn off dating a few months into my freshman year of college because my limited experiences were full of disappointment. They mainly consisted of blind dates with people only interested in hookups and getting off.
I had no mentor. My dad had left when I was ten, and my mom had done her best to keep our tattered family together in the only way she knew how. Her traditional upbringing in war-torn Cambodia was inadequate to meet the challenges of single parenting in America. With five other children to worry about, who seemed to need her more than I did, I slipped through the cracks.
In college, I attempted to create a new identity for myself. Here was my chance to experience what I had read in my romance books and watched on TV.
I depended on well-meaning friends to steer me through the tumultuous sea of dating, even though they lacked knowledge and had no clue how to navigate this space, just like me.
