My change has been more of an ongoing transformation, rather than a one-time, all-at-once event. Four years ago, I was a frail boy who would sit in my car crying and being berated on the phone by a domineering girlfriend and co-dependent parents while all my new college friends enjoyed their lives. Nearly anything would give me a panic attack or cause me to burst into tears and I was very sickly and emotionally and morally weak. From that point, a series of events, some related and some not, began to unfold where I was forced, one by one, to face down my challenges and demons, and over the course of the next four years I became “harder.” I gradually stopped living to completely serve others with flagrant disregard for my own needs. Basically, my relationships with other people matured and people started respecting me more as I stopped letting them use me as their doormat. As this all unfolded, I stopped being depressed, I stopped having panic attacks, and I became more and more confident with each day. I even became more healthy and physically stronger. The final nail in the coffin that I deposited my old self in was hammered down this past December, when I stood up to the last person who was still capable of hurting me, and now she respects me infinitely more.
There’s a quote from The Fountainhead that, when paraphrased, is something like “I would die for you, but I won’t live for you.” I feel like that describes how I am now, in relation to other people. I would die for anyone I loved or even for any good person in general, even if I didn’t know them, but I won’t devote my entire existence to pleasing them. Four years ago, this was all the other way around for me, and I feel like I’ve never been happier, and people have never treated me better than they do now, because I feel respected instead of exploited.