Having PTSD at a young age is hard for a number of reasons—no one expects you to have it, not many people understand it and not many people want to "deal" with it. College and dating are already difficult as is, and having PTSD stem from a rape can make it even more difficult.

Your trust is gone, your confidence is on incredibly shaky ground and your idea of self-worth is just about gone. You aren't yourself anymore. You wish that you were, but there is a fear in the back of your head that something bad is going to happen and it's going to be your fault.

Now, you can manage that fear and work towards reducing it, but it's still there, and it can spike up at the worst moments. It could be months after it happening or years, but sometimes it can unexpectedly pop up.

Living with PTSD itself is rough, and I can only imagine the amount of patience and love it can take from a partner to not just give up and walk away from these issues that are not their own. They go through it almost just as much as you do because you can't do it alone, and relationships are ways to build each other up as a team. The only way to do that is to go through things together.

I don't know if I could have made it through the past couple of years if it hadn't been for my boyfriend (as well as my family). But my boyfriend allowed me to overcome fears that my family couldn't help me with.

It allowed me to trust another man in my life and that he wasn't going to hurt me.

It allowed me to feel comfortable around him when we were alone.

It allowed for me to open up about what happened and why I would act so strange half the time.

It's not easy. Being in a relationship with someone who suffers from PTSD means that you'll have to deal with a lot of crying, a lot of unexpected panic attacks and being pushed away because we don't want you to have to go through this. It means calls randomly throughout the day or in the middle of the night to help calm down your significant other because they had an attack while they were alone and need help. It means giving them space when they can't be touched. It means listening to them when they tell you what they need. It means being patient when they get unexpectedly angry after getting triggered.

It means loving them when they can't understand how to love themselves.

I know I'm not easy to deal with and believe me, so does my boyfriend. Sometimes I need to be told that he still and will always love me and that he will not leave me because of my personal brand of crazy.

But there are upsides to dating with PTSD.

When you stay together through the bad and the ugly, there's still the good and the beautiful. The love is deep, and the love is for a long time.

As I like to say, I am pulling a long-con on my boyfriend to get him to stay in love with me (and it's worked thus far)!

What matters is that you build together, and that's exactly what is needed to get through PTSD. Even though the lows are low, they are never truly too low as they always mean that your partner is right by your side to help you stand when you can't.