Before you judge me. Before you call me a psychopath. Before you call me crazy. Or a b****. Or heartless. Before you know the whole story, do not judge me. I have been judged, harshly, for the past year of my life based off of what people knew of my relationship and the few months after it ended.

Before you call me crazy, understand that you do not know the pain of walking around your high school’s hallways with no knowledge that your boyfriend ended up in bed with another girl at a party last weekend. Try to understand the embarrassment of seemingly being the only person in your grade who hadn’t heard the whispers of what had happened that night when he was supposed to be hanging with “just the guys.” Do not call me crazy until you understand how horrifying it is to begin your senior year of high school with the devastation of being cheated on. Especially when it is with a girl that walks the same hallways as you, and shares the same lab table as you.

Before you judge me, try to feel the same pain of being told that your significant other “needs a break” every other weekend because he thinks you’re taking things too seriously. Being picked up and tossed to the side every other week is exhausting and until you understand the feeling of being an option for someone, do not even try to judge how I react or act because of the heartbreak I felt.

Before you call me a psychopath, try to fathom the feeling of finding out your boyfriend has been texting five or six girls while you unknowingly are dropping money on him for Christmas. Try to understand what it must feel like to see text messages between your boyfriend and girls who know you are his girlfriend, and seeing these messages on Christmas. I guess Santa brought me an extra gift and it was a stocking full of bullshit. Do not judge me until you understand how being treated like an option ruins your self esteem, and makes you question why you are never good enough for your significant other. Do not call me a psychopath for being upset that my boyfriend, someone who is supposed to be loyal to you, is having flirtatious conversations with other girls that he’s “always loved everything about,” when he is supposed to be loving everything about you. If you do not know what that does to a person, do not judge them for how they act or react in moments of anger or hurt.

Before you call me heartless for finally confronting the girl who slept with my boyfriend and kept it a secret between just the two of them for months, understand that I sat next to this girl. Understand that I considered her a friend. At least at one point in time. Understand what it does to a person to see the girl that had sex with your boyfriend when she knowingly was aware that he was dating you. Do not call me heartless for not being able to tolerate her presence sitting less than a foot away from you for months and months in class 5 days a week.