I was the toxic one once, and it taught me what provocation really is.

Some Years ago, I did something that still makes me wince when I think about it ... not because of what he did to me, but because of what I did to him.

His name was Dre. We were young, passionate, reckless. I thought he was cheating on me because he went silent for a few days. I didn't get a phone call, a text message, not even a nod over social media. My insecurity started whispering lies louder than logic ever could.

So one night, when he finally came over, I exploded. I questioned him relentlessly, interrogated his tone, twisted his words, and made him defend his own peace like it was a crime. And when he tried to stay calm, that calm made me even angrier.

Normally when he comes over he would have a book bag with his PlayStation in it..  so me being aware of this, I grabbed the bag, I went to the window and ask him to tell me the truth, and because I figured that he was lying and threw it out the window. 

Not because he hit me. Not because he yelled. But because I couldn’t stand not being in control of what I didn’t understand.

And that is when  he finally snapped.. he grabbed me by the arm and pushed me to the ground. And then he just walked away, shaking his head like he’d seen enough.. he came back and he was just yelling at me and then he walked out again and didn't come back.  at the time I was all in my feelings, but eventually after he left and I was sitting there by myself..

I didn't hear from Dre for a whole nother week. I took initiative to text him was he okay, and we had a talk about it that's when I realized that I had become the threat I was accusing him of being.

He didn’t hit me. He didn’t call me names. He only Shoved me and ask why would I do him this?. Mind you he only showed me because I was all up in his face and I threw away his belongings. 

And that was the moment I learned that silence can be a man’s boundary, not a weapon.

Looking back, I was toxic.

I wasn’t self-assured, I was scared.

I wasn’t protecting love, I was suffocating it.

He wasn’t perfect... no one is ... but he didn’t deserve that kind of chaos.

And I didn’t deserve to keep pretending that my emotional volatility was “passion.”

What I know now:

Provoking someone doesn’t make you powerful; it makes you unstable.

A man’s restraint isn’t weakness it self mastery, his discipline. And if you have to destroy something he loves just to feel seen, you’re already losing yourself.

We broke up not because he stopped caring, but because he finally cared for himself.

And honestly? That was the right thing for both of us.

I was the one who needed to grow.

And I did. Through honesty, humility, and hard lessons about how easy it is to become what you fear.

Abuse isn’t always in fists or words... sometimes it’s in the mirror.

Leata