Ashley's First Boyfriend and Heartbreak

Ah, my first love. So bittersweet.

I met Adam when I was in eighth grade at my new school. Before he entered my

life, I had just gone through one of the most difficult seasons of my young life.

I had just been diagnosed with major depressive disorder after at 13 years old, I

attempted suicide. The word of what I had done got around at school and I was

bullied a lot for it. I was very humiliated and eventually I was able to convince my

parents to let me change schools.

Even though I had changed schools, I was still in the same hometown so it wasn’t

like it was a secret. I lived with a lot of shame, but somehow as the new girl, I

became very popular. I had attention from the boys in my school for the first time.

I never really saw myself as pretty before. I think maybe once or twice in my life I

thought I was pretty, but the other girls in my class would put me down a lot and

the boys picked on me and gave me a hard time because I was one of the first girls

in my class to visibly start puberty. So basically, I had really low self-esteem and

was very surprised any boy would take an interest in me. Up until this point in my

life, I wasn’t allowed to have boyfriends so this was all new territory for me.

I remember when I first started going to school with Adam, he had a girlfriend. I

think she and I had maybe been friends. The two of them broke up and he began

to pursue me. She hated me and to this day, she still does from what I hear.

Adam was super cute. He was the quarterback on the varsity team. He was very

popular. I remember being really shocked that he was even remotely interested in

me. I was such a goofy and awkward girl. I think I felt like my life had become some

kind of movie. Here I had gone from being this clinically depressed and bullied girl

at my Catholic school and then I switched schools and all of a sudden I was

popular and the Varsity quarterback was passing me notes and asking me to be

his girlfriend. I felt like Drew Barrymore in every movie she’s ever made.

I was convinced, like most 13 year old girls that my boyfriend at the time would be

my future husband. I found a prayer I had written in one of my CCD classes at my

church where I was asking God to heal a disabled girl I knew but also asking him

that me and Adam would one day marry.

I remember Adam got me a teddy bear and I named it “Adam Bear” and I carried it

everywhere with me at school. How embarrassing. I can’t believe I did that. I hope

no one remembers that. I remember his friends became my friends and we were

always laughing and having parties. I am sure I was getting pretty clingy. I don’t

think I was Adam’s first serious relationship, but he was mine. I know we passed a

lot of love notes to each other and of course met each other’s parents. We were

really adorable. I know every teenage girl thinks her and her boyfriend are the

coolest and the cutest, but we were. Maybe I peaked in the eighth grade.

But because this is a podcast about breakups, I have to talk about the breakup.

Eventually, Adam broke up with me. I don’t remember the details, but I remember

waking up the next morning and feeling my first heartache. I think it brought up all

my rejection and abandonment issues I already had developed at this point. I

remember I was pretty blindsided by all of it. I couldn’t believe my fairy tale had

ended. It consumed me. I drove my best friend and her mother nuts for a long time

because it was all I could talk about. It is so embarrassing for me to think of

because I know I acted crazy. I remember sitting behind him and his friends in the

movie theatre and dumping popcorn on him. I think it took me a year or so to even

get over him.

I just didn’t know anything about breakups. I didn’t know how to deal or cope with

rejection at all. Just before I had met Adam, I had been diagnosed with major

depression. So I already had problems and then after I had my heartbroken for the

first time, I really developed some trust issues I had never had before either. I

acted crazy for awhile until I discovered drugs and alcohol and then I just became

a little hood rat.

I can really see now as a Christian woman how the devil had an agenda with me.

He knew the demons I had been battling my whole life. He knew the people and

the places to put into my path while I was grieving and going through the

painfulness of adolescence that would steer me down a darker path and

unfortunately, I wasn’t equipped to fight him. I mean of course I don’t blame Adam

for my being a train wreck. I was a wreck before I ever met him, but if I look at the

timeline that is my life I can see how the devil worms his way into our lives to steal,

kill, and destroy us with no mercy.

After Adam, I had a few good boyfriends, but eventually I got so involved with

drugs and alcohol that the party boys were the only guys who were on my radar

and those boys really, really hurt me and even later in my life severely traumatized

me. I think it is interesting how some of us aren’t equipped to deal with rejection or

we have deep-seated abandonment issues that the devil exploits for his gain.

-Ashley