My story

[Thesulli1995]

Hello, hope you don’t mind me sharing, but this is my story. A little about me, I am you can call me A. I am a 26 year old, non-binary AMAB person (I use all pronouns) and I was in a 3 year long emotional abusive relationship.

I don’t even know where to start this but I guess, I’ll start with how we met. I’m a very shy person, so meeting someone outside of online dating scares me, so I met him online. He wasn’t my first love as I had been in a relationship before. We met and we instantly got on we had so much banter and we seemed perfect for each other and around that time I thought he was the best person in the world. I was studying my Foundation year at University when we met and then during the summer before joining University I stayed a lot at his parents house and it all seemed to be going well, little did I know the abuse had already started. It started very subtly, we’d be with his family maybe like a BBQ or another family event and I’d say something and he’s tell me “Shut up” now I always thought he was joking around as he always laughed about it. Little did I know he actually meant it. This happened regularly through out our relationship, he would either tell me to shut up, try embarrass me in front of people by causing arguments or just general belittlement. This got worse in the later part of the relationship but we’ll come onto that. When I told him about my childhood sexual abuse by a cousin he literally made it all about him and how he felt and didn’t ask how I was. He went on this massive rant about how he’s gonna drag me to the police station. My abuser is in prison not for abusing me, I don’t believe he abused anyone else, but he tried to stab someone. I was also raped when I was in my early 18’s and when I told him about that he literally laughed in my face because the guy who raped me was a person he knew.

That summer just before I was meant to go back to university, we stupidly decided to get our own place. He knew my situation, he knew I was going to university and I couldn’t bring as much as him financially, even though we did use my student loan for household stuff and I had a part time job. But this became an issue, every time we had an argument or he got drunk he’d bring me down about it. He loved to remind me that the house was his and that he brought most of the money home. We managed to get into thousands of pound of debts, which again even though he made those decision it was my fault.

At the worst part of our relationship, we’d be arguing everyday. But he didn’t like to argue in private, he’d wait until we went shopping or in a public place and start shouting at me. The worst thing he ever did with me was take my phone lock himself in the bathroom and call his parents saying that I was about to beat him up. Oh yeah, his parents were none the wiser, they thought I was the bad one even though they were literally there throughout most of this. We broke up after that event but I was still mostly oblivious to the abuse. So, a month later he came back and promised he would change and apologised and I loved him. Call it Stockholm Syndrome but I felt comfortable with him. I took him back and for a while it seemed to be okay again, but them it started again. He’s embarrass me in front of his friends, he’s make me feel stupid, the levels of emotional abuse he’d stoop to was shocking. This is where my mental health spiralled, I left university, I literally was in that house 24 hours a day because I was so emotionally broken. When we finally broke up for good, he’d ring me constantly saying he was going to kill himself. We had to keep in contact because of the debts, so I was still attached to him for a couple more years. We paid all our debts off in September 2019 and I blocked him on everything.

But, the thing is with abuse, the abuse at the time is bad but after you’ve escaped the abuse its even worse. I lost myself for many years, I still am pretty lost. I thought I had started to live again back in 2019 but the Lockdown has set that back a lot. I am in a new relationship and he’s lovely. But, abuse gives you these awful thoughts of similarity. It’s easier to find the bad traits in people after you’ve been through abuse and I can’t seem to escape that. When ever anyone tells me to “Shut up” I get this awful feeling in my stomach, I could almost be sick. Them words just bring back so many feelings and yeah I can’t cope with it. I have even told my current partner to never tell me to “shut up.”

Where am I currently? I have no idea. I’m still struggling not going to lie. I have trust issues opening up with people I’m close with just in case it happens again, I have this massive feeling of not being good enough and emptiness. Maybe that Stockholm syndrome like feeling is still in control. I don’t know. Do I still love him? Yeah, but I understand that I’m worth more than that now. Being abused is weird, I just can’t get out of this mindset and this feeling of absolutely emptiness inside.

I want to be happy and be comfortable with who I am and know my self worth, without just saying it. Maybe speaking to people who have been in the same situation would help

Thanks for reading, I also apologise about how messy the structure is,

Yours,

A.

[Author]

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