I have attempted many times, all futile, to put into words what my experience with abuse was like and how it has affected my mind and emotions long-term, but have backed out partially because of a fear of repercussions of writing about it. One such repercussion is, I admit I have been fearful of posting my writing about it for how my friends and family may worry reading about my mental health, and for what other people may think- I did not want to simply be known as the girl who went through abuse, and worse yet, let it happen to her. But that shame has passed. I am not the young, naive person who allowed myself to stay in an abusive dynamic. I now know it was a mere chapter in my life, and because I am beyond ready to close it, I am writing about it. Over the years, I have come to note that keeping it to myself has allowed the emotional wound to fester but not fully heal. Once I write about it, I can leave it outside of myself forever more. It is important to me because my mind and emotional body have not been the same since those years transpired. It has been, furthermore, difficult to forgive myself for allowing myself to be treated in such a way and that shame has been something that has become too difficult to carry. In writing about it, I will no longer be ashamed. This will no longer have a hold over me. I am sharing my experience with abuse so I can fully heal from it, to purge this chapter of my life story from my heart once and for all. I am sharing it so that it may hold less power over me than it does currently while it is unspoken, and finally, I am sharing it with the hope that others in similar situations may learn from my story and help themselves out of their situations.
Relationships are complicated. We all know that whether abuse is present or not in a relationship, there is always a multitude of emotions displayed between two people varying in intensity. There are different levels of emotional control demonstrated by each individual, thus when these two individuals come together there is a sort of 'chemical reaction' of emotions and a meeting of the minds. To add abuse into the mix is to incite an explosion. Therein, one can begin to comprehend the intensity of abuse in the context of a romantic relationship. Without further ado- around the age of 18, 10 years ago, I began a relationship with a person who I will not name nor will I disclose anything about. I will state that this relationship was long distance and was brought on by the person being very intense in their interest toward me. At the time, having had zero dating experience beforehand, I thought that intense quantities of attention meant that a person cared about me a lot. I believe I had this confused with the idea of love, which is what I believed I was fostering at the time. The intense attention very quickly became controlling. I recall immediately feeling extremely uncomfortable with certain aspects of their behavior toward me but I made my mind up that 'they meant well', well, because they showed such a grand interest in my affairs. When I began verbally sharing more aspects of my life with this person, they became increasingly controlling, demanding answers and questioning my logic about things that are normal, such as why I chose to dress a certain way, and began calling me out of my name when they felt slighted on any occasion. I remember posting a photo of myself in a gold dress online, just for fun, and they called me out of my name and said I looked as though I was seeking attention when I simply was dressing up to try to feel pretty. I realized at that exact moment I didn't like this person or how they treated me, so after only a short while of 'being together' I sought to end the connection. The person then began to bombard me, sending videos of themselves crying, in utter despair, begging me to come back. So I stayed in the situation because I felt sorry for them and I was afraid they would hurt themselves. That was the moment that my fate was sealed. I could not stand up for myself, nor could I protect myself against someone who weaponized my heart against me.
Soon thereafter, the person began emotionally manipulating me by feigning their want for suicide. He would moan about his life and dump it on me that he was going to end his life should things not get better, dangling before me the idea of having more money to support his hobbies, which I ended up sending to him as I felt obligated to save another person's life. Looking back, this is ludicrous, but I believed at the time I had a duty to help this poor person who had nothing going for them and no means to get the money they needed to, for example, keep their gym membership. I realize now that I was used for physical, emotional, mental, and financial gain. I was nothing but a well to that person to draw from. Unfortunately, my water ran out and once I was running dry that person grew more and more unkind toward me.
The relationship, having started intensely, grew colder and harsher than the darkest winter in history. I was hung up on in the middle of sharing my innermost feelings, I was laughed at for standing up for myself respectfully, I was screamed at, lied to, called names, and mentally and emotionally manipulated more than I am comfortable with sharing. The person I was with broke things and punched things in front of me, even during our visits in person. There was one time in person I thought he might put his hands on me. In the most unkind way, the worst of it was when my emotions were laughed at and invalidated- it caused me to doubt my intuition and that what I was feeling and thinking was 'true'. All my thoughts and feelings were met with a ‘you’re too sensitive’ or ‘ you make no sense’ reaction or verbalization- they would often question them outright and make me feel like I’m crazy for having feelings at all or asking them normal questions one would want answers to. Therein began the disconnect between my mind and heart. My heart was screaming at me the WHOLE time that something was wrong with this connection, but my mind was firmly stating that what he said, he meant, even though nothing added up. I also thought I was building a future with the person, a real relationship. I kept giving and giving and sharing my heart and feelings and could not understand why the person was so distant and mean. I did not understand that this person had their own mental issues to deal with. I thought that love meant I had to put up with the worst behavior, that it meant you stay through anything. I did not understand what healthy love looked and felt and behaved like.
All I wanted during those years was to be free. I had unknowingly, and by choice, made that person my world, I had made it my mission to save him from himself and completely abandoned myself in the process. My biggest mistake was making another person more important than myself. In part, in huge part, it was my own fault for allowing myself to stay in that ocean of madness. The connection was toxic as is and quickly became codependent because the more he tore me down, the more I thought I needed to stay. The tricky thing with abuse is it strips you of your confidence so you now rely on the person who is hurting you to feel better and to tell you your emotions are true and correct. This explains the highs and lows- when they treat you 'right' you feel as if you are doing something right (reward) and the lows (punishment) that come with doing or saying or feeling the wrong thing (in their book). Abuse breaks you down until you are barely the person you were at the beginning of it. In the end, I became very aggressive, anxious, angry, sad-hearted, broken-spirited, scattered, and defensive- everything negative I had had in me all along was brought to light in the worst way. I believe the saddest part of it was how the abuse broke my spirit almost completely- I forgot how to trust others, and myself. I believe this is why my mind broke apart and I stopped trusting my own thoughts and emotions. I could simply say that I am now healed from years of abuse, but that would be false. To be completely healed, my mind would have to be as healthy as it was beforehand, and it is still a few steps away from that. I sometimes feel that this is only the beginning of my healing, although I have been working at it for years. I have come to know, you cannot truly begin to heal until you have left the abuse behind completely. It is okay to be reeling from the abuse you endured even years after it has occurred. Minds break under the stress of it. If you are reading this and suspect someone is not treating you well, what you should know is that a loving dynamic never has either side fighting for control of the other. You will, and should be allowed to have your own identity- your own wants and needs, and emotions. They will truly have your best interest at heart. Real love allows you to be free in body, mind, and spirit.
While I am long over the relationship, it is imperative I write about the abuse so that I can move on from the abuse and truly heal my mind even more. It stole years of my life while it was happening, affecting my everyday life for several grueling years. I became miserable, fraught with emotional and mental tension in anticipation of when the next dagger would come - when the next stab of pain would hit my heart. I did not trust them, or my own intuition. Tragically, I believe that after several years of putting myself in this situation, my mind began to break from the sheer weight of the stress and pain of being in it. When your mind no longer trusts your heart/intuition, and your intuition is no longer correctly transmitting to your mind what it can not yet understand, the mind-heart connection breaks apart. This is how I experienced tsunami levels of anxiety for the first several years of this connection, and toward the very end, my mind began to break and went through the phase of a lack of mental wellness named Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). I believe if a person is exposed to major stress day in and day out, they will become chronically stressed or anxious. It is a natural response to that type of stimulus. Now, taking away that stressor may reduce the level of average distress but if the stressor was present for a long time, removing it will not necessarily totally eliminate the stress the person feels routinely, as anxiety has become their reflexive response to any amount of stress. Abuse warps your idea and sense of self. It can lead a person to become mentally unwell. That is what happened to me- someone with no history of mental illness at all. The abuse I endured made me so stressed that I developed a nervous problem (anxiety) which led to a mental one (OCD).
Anxiety takes a long time to heal and to learn to manage, no matter what its cause is. One must have patience and understand that their body and mind's reactions need to be weaned off of the powerful drug that fear ultimately is. That is why healing emotions is crucial to mental well-being. If you can heal and control your emotions you can heal your mind! Tied to this, I may finally focus on the after-effects of the abuse and how I have been working tirelessly all these years to heal emotionally and heal my mind ( and anxiety!) These next posts, I am even more excited to share with you all. Writing about mental health is one of my greatest passions. To draw this post to a close I can state that the sole thing I am truly grateful for from this experience is a deeper understanding of mental health and how closely it is linked to one's heart. I now understand that while the behaviors I was exposed to can be classified as abusive, they were probably not entirely malicious as they were just who that person is. They very obviously had mental health issues, both diagnosed and undiagnosed that I will not talk about, and I did not know that it was not my job to fix them, or their behavior toward me. It is when we try to change things that are out of our control that we suffer greatly. With that in mind, I have long since forgiven that person and am choosing to forgive myself, for my involvement there was not selfish, but filled with a longing to cease another person's suffering. Why should you forgive another's mistreatment of you? One good reason is that it is never personal. Poor behavior means that they are suffering within. Need another reason? A lack of forgiveness only destroys you, a moldy bitterness overtaking your insides, stinking you up from within. You will reek of anger, bitterness, and apathy. From personal experience, I was most unhappy when I could not forgive. The anger I carried, and the distress I put myself through by reliving the experiences that made me feel hurt over and over again were fraying the ends of my emotional ropes. I became a ball of fury, fear, and resentment, bearing a pretense of confidence which was a mask for arrogance. In healing my emotions I have found my peace. In fully healing my mind and reactions next, I will be able to maintain my peace. I hope you carry something from this story with you on your healing journey.
Please keep an eye out for a post about my experience with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I am rather eager to share what it was like, how it came about, and how I got it under control. Cheers!
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