AI-generated illustrative image representing emotional isolation and anxiety.

Every time my phone vibrated, I felt anxious before I felt loved. That realisation did not come to me immediately. It took months of confusion, emotional exhaustion, sleepless nights, and countless moments of self-doubt for me to understand that something inside me was slowly breaking.

Growing up, the idea of love never fascinated me the way it fascinated others. My friends dreamt about relationships, confessions, late-night calls, and perfect futures with someone they loved. I listened to them, smiled at their excitement, but deep inside, I never truly believed love was meant for me.

Maybe it was because my understanding of safety had already been damaged during childhood.

Some experiences quietly change a person forever. For me, it was being abused by someone within my own family at an age when I did not even understand what was happening to me. Home no longer felt comforting after that. Trust stopped feeling natural. Even when life continued normally on the outside, something inside me remained constantly alert, cautious, and emotionally distant.

That was why I avoided relationships for a long time. But college changed many things.

During my second year, one of my classmates slowly became close to me. We started talking casually at first, then more frequently over time. He was someone I felt comfortable with. I could speak openly without pretending to be someone else. For the first time in years, I felt emotionally safe around another person.

Neither of us confessed our feelings immediately. It happened slowly, naturally, over the course of almost a year. Eventually, he admitted that he loved me. I did not feel pressured into accepting him. In fact, I thought maybe this was what healing looked like. Maybe love did not always have to feel frightening.

But around the same time, another uncomfortable situation began developing in my classroom.

One of my classmates repeatedly tried taking pictures of me without permission. The first time I noticed it, I confronted him directly. He denied it immediately, pretending nothing had happened. But over time, his behaviour became increasingly disturbing. He crossed personal boundaries casually, behaved inappropriately around girls, and continued acting disrespectfully despite being warned multiple times.

But I was never silent about it.

I shouted at him publicly, insulted him, and even fought back physically when he repeatedly crossed the line. Once, out of anger and frustration, I even hit him with a steel water bottle in front of seniors. Fortunately, he was not seriously injured, but the incident became widely discussed within the college.

People called me aggressive.

Very few asked why I had reacted that way in the first place.

Months passed, and life slowly returned to normal again.

By the final year of college, I believed things had calmed down, but the same classmate approached me one day under the excuse of asking doubts. I stayed cautious around him, but a part of me also felt reassured because my boyfriend was nearby. A few other classmates were around us, too, so I assumed nothing inappropriate would happen again.

I was wrong.

Within moments, his behaviour became uncomfortable once more. The same invasive touches. The same deliberate attempts to cross physical boundaries while pretending innocence.

But this time, something inside me froze.

Earlier, I had shouted, fought back, and defended myself aggressively. But during that moment, I could not even react properly. I remember instinctively looking toward my boyfriend, expecting him to stop it immediately, or at least recognise how uncomfortable I was feeling.

He saw everything. And yet, he did nothing.

He sat there silently, watching the entire situation unfold as though it were happening on a television screen instead of happening to someone he claimed to love. I cannot fully explain what broke inside me during that moment. It was not just disappointment. It was the painful realisation that even in a relationship, I was still protecting myself alone.

That incident stayed with me far longer than the harassment itself. Because, for the first time, I began to question whether love without protection, support, or emotional safety could truly be called love at all.

Meanwhile, my relationship continued. At least, I thought it did.

One day, my boyfriend asked whether he could tell his friends about us. I clearly told him no. It was not because I was ashamed of the relationship. I simply did not trust his friend circle. Their behaviour always felt immature, invasive, and disrespectful of privacy.

Still, he told them.

Within days, information about our relationship spread across departments. Rumours, unnecessary comments, gossip, and indirect mockery followed. What hurt me most was not the gossip itself, but the realisation that my boundaries had not been respected even after I communicated them clearly.

Whenever I questioned him about it, he defended his friends repeatedly. According to him, they were trustworthy. To me, they treated people’s private lives like entertainment.

That was when something inside me began changing.

Slowly, conversations that once comforted me started exhausting me. His constant need for replies, repeated calls, emotional dependence, requests for photos, and pressure to meet privately no longer felt romantic to me. Instead, it all began to feel overwhelming.

I kept asking myself the same question repeatedly:

Was this love, or was I simply becoming emotionally trapped?

The most confusing part was that I knew he genuinely loved me in his own way. He cared about me deeply. He worried when I disappeared for hours. He wanted my attention constantly because I mattered to him.

But love alone was no longer enough to make me feel safe.

I realised something painful during that phase of my life: sometimes people can love you and still make you uncomfortable. Sometimes intentions are not evil, yet their actions slowly drain you emotionally. Sometimes a relationship can begin with comfort and end in fear without either person fully understanding when things changed.

The girl who once felt peaceful talking to him now felt anxious seeing his notifications.

And that frightened me.

For a long time, I blamed myself. Maybe I was overthinking. Maybe relationships naturally feel suffocating after a certain point. Maybe I was emotionally damaged because of my past.

But eventually, I understood something important.

Love should not feel like emotional pressure disguised as care. It should not make someone afraid, exhausted, or unsafe. Real love listens when boundaries are spoken.

In the end, I chose to walk away.

Not because I hated him.

Not because he was entirely a bad person.

But because I missed the version of myself that felt emotionally calm, safe, and free.

Maybe he loved me in the only way he knew how.

But I finally understood that I could not continue sacrificing my peace to protect someone else’s feelings.

Some relationships teach people how to love. Mine taught me how important it is to feel safe.

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