If you know me well you know I have had struggles with commitment. Some of this ties to the anxiety and depression in general obviously, but there’s more to it than that. It was winter break a few years back when I ran into a girl that I remember meeting at a summer camp over 10 years ago, and she was just as gorgeous as I remembered. We hit it off and things move pretty quickly. A week later I was at her families’ famous Christmas party being introduced to all her family and friends.

Her and I both had or were struggling with anxiety and depression, which as always I want to say there’s nothing wrong with. But, the problem is you can’t fully love someone else until you’re able to fully love yourself. And neither of us were there yet. We caught feelings so fast and became a legitimate part of each other’s lives so quickly that it freaked me out, I’m not gonna lie. I just remember knowing that I wasn’t ready to love her the way she deserved and I had a lot to figure out about who I was before I couldn’t figure out about who I wanted. What made things even more difficult is we were long distance because winter break was over and I had gone back to school. I remember calling her, telling her all of this, crying because I knew I was hurting her. I remember her hanging up and texting me asking me how we could work it out together countless times, her messages getting more and more concerning. Until the messages stopped after she had sent a very clear message that she was about to do something drastic. I panicked, didn’t know what to do, I didn’t have her parents’ numbers. So, I called 911, only problem, she was in back home and I was directly to Clemson’s emergency services. After telling the operator the story just to be told that I needed to contact the authorities in her area I was even more worried. The clock was ticking and she still wouldn’t text back or pick up. I finally got in contact with an officer back home and told him everything. He tried reaching her but she didn’t answer. After that I sent him screenshots of every text we had so that he had the proof he needed to go in and make sure she was ok, at this point I just had to wait. While I waited I remember calling my mom bursting into tears just asking her what to do. This was when my mom and I weren’t really that close but I just remember wanting all the fear to go away and she was who I knew I could turn to. When the officer finally called back he said that she was ok and had been taken to a hospital for a mental evaluation. I still don’t know what was or if anything was happening but it was heart wrenching. I remember I was shocked to see her call me, I think about two hours after all this had went down. She had already been released from the hospital and made a comment about us working through this. I remember hearing that and not know what to say, I felt as if her life was in my hands based off what happened just hours earlier, but also knew that a relationship was not what either of us needed at the time. We ended up cutting ties pretty abruptly after that, but she was ok, and that was all I cared about. For the longest time I held on to those pictures of our text that I sent that cop, reading the conversation over and over, trying to explain it all, figure out what I could’ve done differently. It ate me alive to the point where I was afraid to actually commit when I was ready, out of the fear of something like that happening again.