Sometimes falling for someone is something similar to a roller coaster ride. It begins slowly and for a moment all you can feel is the thrill, the anticipation of what is to come. You convince yourself that you are in control but alas, that is just an illusion.
As the ride inches up the steep incline and the world starts to fall away, you start wondering if hopping on the ride was a good idea in the first place.
You can’t deny that you are a little frightened by the dizzying heights and the possibility of plummeting hundreds of feet to your death. But you do not do anything to get off the ride because you have passed the point of no return.
Or so it feels because you are in love. Or some version of it.
It is at that moment that you realize that it has taken over your life. You wake up thinking of your love interest, you go to bed thinking of them and many times you wake up in the middle of the night checking if there are any messages from them.
At times you feel helpless as the roller coaster of emotions tosses you left, right, and upside down as you hold on for dear life. You feel like you are losing control trying to achieve something that is slippery as an eel at best and fantasy at worst.
In other words, it has become all-consuming and everything else in your life is taking a backseat.
Not good.
At this point, you know you are in an unhealthy relationship. The question then becomes what are you going to do about it?
5 Signs I Needed to Cut Lose From an Unhealthy Relationship
- I was unable to focus on anything much else except this person who had sole monopoly over my thoughts and feelings — neither life nor hobbies and the strange thing was that I began to believe none of it mattered. That was an unhealthy obsession right there.
- The glaring fact that it was going a mile a minute was a big red flag. There were no checks or balances on this emotional rollercoaster. How can you determine that someone is good for you or meant for you even if it is love at first sight for you?
- When I inherently knew it was not the same for the other person and yet stubbornly refused to accept reality because fantasy was something I needed at that moment.
- I started getting upset with my close friends who cautioned me against taking it any further. What did they know after all? Maybe this was the one — the one I had been waiting for all my life and I certainly was not about to lose the opportunity.
- We were regularly getting into heated debates and retreating to our respective corners in passive-aggressive stances. Then one would reach out to the other, they would be a making up and the pattern would repeat itself without fail.
Talk about a stormy relationship!
After the rain
Even then, I had hoped, no prayed, it would last longer but then, thunderstorms rarely do. They swoop in, do their thing, strike down a few hapless trees in the process, and disappear.
In other words, they simply run out of juice, and just like that the crazy roller coaster ride you were on is over.
Sometimes it feels like a dream, even the memories have that same nebulous quality that makes one wonder if it really happened or if it was all a figment of my imagination.
And yet, deep in your heart, you know it did and that the love or whatever it was that you shared at that moment in time was real.
And after sufficient time has passed, you know you will be okay because there are no longer any hard feelings.
Just sweet acceptance and blessed relief.
