There are no good girls gone wrong. Just bad girls found out. -Mae West

Fairly recently, an old friend came to me for some advice regarding a friend of hers. I was more than willing to listen but because I don't know the friend in question, it made it difficult to fairly offer up an opinion on the situation because obviously, everyone's story is different. How on earth could I try to develop an opinion on the matter or determine a solution to this woman's problem when she was literally a stranger to me?

So my friend gave me a little bit of insight on the situation without disclosing too much. Because my friend had such a close friendship with this Mystery Girl, she didn't want to give too much away, for fear of stories circulating around town. Which I can totally identify with given my tortured history and the small town in which I lived in. It seems like people always know your business. Or they typically know all the bad stuff that is surely super embarrassing. Especially when it's repeated a million times and depending on the variation, completely twisted into an entirely different story all together. So as such, I told my friend that I was here to listen when she wanted to talk about whatever was going on with her friend. I also told her that I understood if I only got the bare minimum of details.

Mystery Girl's story was one that I've heard more than once. It's a story that has been told the world over. Every man, the same in every story. Every lady, innocent and different, with varying stories.

Men are terrible, friends. They are awful, terrible creatures that are missing a sensitivity chip. It's been my experience that nearly ALL of them do you wrong at least once in your life. And what's even worse is when they do all these horrible things to women, it's the women who end up damaged, scared of intimate relationships and virtually unapproachable. The proverbial man always appears to be unscathed and it's not fair. (I'm sorry to get all Taylor Swift on you. But it's an honest observation.)

No one knows how it is that with a glance, a boy can break through into a girl's heart. -Napoleon Bonaparte

Anyway, Mystery Girl's story got me to thinking about that old Rihanna song, Good Girls Go Bad. Personally, I identify with that song so much and I know I'm not the only one.

What happens to those women who have been destroyed by their men? What happens when they've been beaten down, physically and emotionally, to the point that their whole personality changes and the next guy who comes into contact with her literally stumbles upon a five foot two inch train wreck? What happens when that good girl DOES go bad? So bad that she's barely recognizable to those that have known her for years? What then? The man goes on being a man, drinking whiskey and swindling innocent ladies. All while she's trying to stay strong, keeping her tragic history a secret so that people don't view her as a pathetic charity case. It's awful. Tragic.

What I don't understand is how the aforementioned rotten ones can sleep so peacefully at night. To be fair, I'm sure that there are a select few who honestly don't realize that their behavior is comparable to that of Ike Turner's. I'm not sure if them being totally oblivious to how poorly they treat their girlfriends is a good thing or not. I mean, if you don't know the difference between right and wrong, or how to keep your nasty comments and hands to yourself, forgive me but you probably need to go back to kindergarten.

And as for the ones that DO know: I'd like to ask them what it feels like to pick on someone far weaker than them? Yelling at a lady can't possibly make you feel powerful or good about yourself, can it? I mean, all mommy issues aside, you would think if you were so miserable that you had to yell, scream and call your girlfriend derogatory names, that would be an indicator that something wasn't right. And I'm no developmental psychologist (yet) but that's probably not normal behavior. And enduring it for more than five minutes, let alone a lifetime or your ever valuable, irreplaceable twenties just seems like crazy talk. It's about time these people left Crazy Town, friends.

So here's my thing: given the situation (A badly behaved boyfriend. I'll leave it to you to imagine it.), after the dissolution of said terrible relationship, when the lady finally realize it's okay to stand up for herself and rebel against his twisted manipulations and isolating behavior, I ask you friends: Has she REALLY gone bad? Or is she just reacting to the situation by looking out for herself and utilizing her right of self-preservation? Have these strong, fighting women gone bad or just adapted to a world overpopulated with insolent, controlling brutes?

I had a close friend whose demented boyfriend incessantly made references to her being fat. (She wasn't, by the way. But it's not like that really matters. I don't think there's ever really a time when things like that are appropriate to say. To anyone.) He spoke ill about her feminine body parts and made her literally afraid to look at herself in the mirror. He was constantly criticizing literally EVERY aspect of her life, from her wardrobe to her friends. She would never be skinny enough, pretty enough or classy enough for him. Honestly, looking back at it, I don't think that anyone ever could.

Finally, she realized that she had to go bad and fight back in her own way. The only way that she knew how. She dried her teary eyes and stood up for herself, once and for all. That old part of her died at that moment and she woke up the next day a new person. She became a fighter who was hell bent on only indulging the gentlemen of the world, no matter how few and far between they might have been. She became very picky and would blow off men if they even raised their voice to her once.

Eventually, she came to the conclusion that no man was ever going to be good enough for her. She sought out things single handedly and was perfectly comfortable spending the rest of her life alone. She was one bad bitch and never again would she be some overgrown man child's punching bag.

About six months ago, she celebrated her third wedding anniversary with a man who saw her damaged goods and made it his life mission to repair every. Single. One.

Yes, she's a work in progress but this man welcomed the challenge. With a warm smile and open, tattooed arms.

Moral of the Crazy: To be honest, I don't understand men. No matter how seemingly simplex the majority of them are. Yes, women are angels and men are animals but I don't know how you could continue living so carelessly knowing that you've damaged someone's life so severely. To be so deranged and vicious that you turn a good girl bad, all by yourself.

And no, it's not all of them. But there's enough bad men for it to be considered a very serious epidemic.

So be good to those you love. Even if you're angry. Live by self-preservation and always fight back because they aren't all bad. And we're all worth saving.

If I were a girl, I'd despair. The supply of good women far exceeds that of the men who deserve them. -Robert Graves