Damaged Goods.

When you think about abuse, most people will think about the physical side to it. 

Emotional abuse is almost entirely different and doesn't really hit home to the abuser or the abuse victim. This post isn't intended to start a hate campaign of any kind because he doesn't know I'm doing it and I fully intend on keeping it that way. This is all part of my healing process, my progression into normality once again. 

My post the other week was a step into admitting the deep depression that I had been boggled in for the last five years but in reality, the main reason I was depressed was because I didn't think I was good enough. Good enough for anything. I don't think my ex partner even knew half the time what a piece of shit he made me feel like because he never intended on listening to the issues I presented him with. Even if I was listened to at the time, the blame was passed onto me leaving me feeling like the aggressor in the scenario. 

I know I wasn't perfect in the five years, I had some unexplainable anger issues which came out a number of times - they weren't me. I had just turned into a monster because that's who he wanted me to be.  

It should have been a red flag when I wasn't living with him and he was accusing me of cheating on him or getting paranoid about where I was - in his eyes he was doing it because he was worried about me and I still honestly believe that but in reality it was weakening me down to think that I shouldn't be worthy of love. He knew where I was all day, everyday - the whole five years. The only time he possibly didn't was when I'd visit home and loose signal on the train because North Devon is in the stone age. That should have been my queue to go and yet I didn't - what a dickhead I was for that.

Six months into the relationship I moved in with him, my friend came to visit for her birthday a few months after we had gotten settled. I went out, had a few drinks and went dancing with them - I wore lipstick and a different perfume to last a bit longer.
I slept on the couch that night and he threw his phone at the wall or our RENTED flat, a flat that I had gotten my parents to pay the deposit on because I was paying the rent as he barely had a job. Better yet, the phone going into the wall was my fault because I shouldn't have gone out looking like that if I didn't want him to think I was up to no good. 

At that point, I stopped going out - what was the point if I was going to get accused of cheating every time so my self isolation of 5 years began. My friends really had no idea, no real clue what was truly happening because I told them select information. I didn't really know how to get myself out of it. 

I went on holiday before the pandemic hit, a holiday to Florida that my parents invited him on because they considered him part of the family - he had never even spoken to my oldest brother, I don't know why they are so lovely about it all. I had eaten in a restaurant and later that evening when we left I had started to feel sick - we got some fresh air and we went to bed. At about 11pm I ran to the toilet but didn't quite make it, but it wouldn't stop. Instead of asking if I was okay, what a stupid idiot I was because now he had to clean it all up. 
Food poisoning is a real trip when you're also getting called stupid, I now think back on that holiday and literally think about that moment because even after we got back, he couldn't apologize - he could only brag about it to his friends and brother.  

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't all bad - I do have good memories but in his mind 95% of our relationship was good which gives him the right to not leave me alone. That 5% was the last few months of him not knowing whether I was too depressed to stay with and be happy but in my head it was 5% good memories and 95% trauma, gaslighting and constant blame games on me. 

It sounds really stupid in my head to think I feel like I've got PTSD from this and that I'm now having to be that fucking idiot learning how to be in a normal relationship - that a normal sex life doesn't involve guilt tripping. Genuinely feel sorry for anyone who will like me in the future because of all this and just hope that it'll be someone patient enough to put up with it all. To be honest it's a lot to ask of anyone so.
Even though I'm in a good place now and I have started fresh I sometimes get taken back to a vulnerable place, a dark place that I called home for five years.