Exposing Emotional Abuse: My Story

A few years ago I had the opportunity to associate with people who were much younger than me. If I hadn’t made the decision to go back to school, I might never have met them. Their age was somewhere between my generation and the generation of my children. Something caught my attention, especially among the girls. They became completely immersed in emotionally abusive relationships without even realizing it. Is that all their future has in store for them?

They told me about the fights they had with their boyfriends. It always sounded the same. First, they explained the reason behind their anger, how they reached a breaking point, and then they ended the story with some form of guilt or responsibility. Something along the lines of “I was really bad-tempered,” “It wasn’t that bad what he did.”

To be honest, the shivers went through my body when I heard their stories. They were things a girl should never endure. These girls made up excuses for all their boyfriends’ bad behavior, even when they didn’t agree with how they were being treated. I’m sure that if they looked at their situation objectively, they themselves would disagree with the justifications they held so tightly to.

How many times have I seen them approach with a sad face. During the break they told what had happened until everything they felt inside came out. It was so obvious. That was not the face of a girl in love. It was the face of someone in a dependent and toxic relationship, a relationship full of emotional abuse.

And I asked myself, is there nothing we can do to warn them? Do each of us have to see it with our own eyes and experience the terrible consequences of abuse to really recognize it? So that’s what this article is for, for these girls or anyone else who finds it useful.

This is a girl’s testimony. A friend who slowly fell into the clutches of emotional abuse without even realizing it herself, until it was almost too late.

A real case of emotional abuse

I let myself be seduced by a ghost in a nice white sheet. He was older and more experienced. I didn’t see it, I didn’t know. We didn’t know anything about emotional abuse at the time. Unfortunately, I couldn’t open my eyes to the truth until it was too late.

I just wanted to feel like myself and experience a perfect childhood through my son. The perfect childhood I thought possible in the idea of ​​the “happy family” I had always longed for.

When I got pregnant, his true self started to show more and more. He started mistreating me, yelling, insulting me and arguing with me about every little thing. He made me feel inferior and like I was good for nothing. Who was I without him?

Everything got worse after my son was born

When my son was born, things got worse. He even mistreated me with the baby in my arms. From then on I tried to avoid arguments as much as I could. I ran from his tantrums, letting myself be convinced by a single “I’m sorry.” Which happened more and more. I got caught in the trap of emotional abuse. Most of the time I felt responsible for it myself. Was I, in my bad mood, the culprit?

He stopped working and did not help with the household either. When he had a beer, he almost turned into the devil. He verbally abused me, beat me and broke everything within his reach. However, I always kept in mind that one beautiful goal: a happy family. Every couple fights, I told myself.

Whenever he argued with me, I avoided him. It was unthinkable that I would have to experience the screams and insults of my childhood home in my own home. The worst part was that destructive attitude. It doesn’t heal, it gets deeper every day.

He started abusing our son when he was three years old.  He began to humiliate him as much as he did to me. Our son was easy prey for all the hatred he had accumulated. Hate. Why? I will never know. But I do know that he always tried to keep a victim close. It was clear we were unhappy.

My friends were essential to open my eyes to reality

Slowly I expanded my social circle. I made new friends, even though I was actually already a hermit. And I saw – I began to see and was forced to see – that these arguments and fights were not normal. He destroyed my self-esteem.

I toiled both indoors and out to earn some money. In the summer, after serving tables for nine or ten hours, I escaped with my friends for a few hours. I found comfort in their sweet words of support and affection. However, when winter came again, I had to go back to my prison. With each passing day, the dream of a happy family grew further and further away from me.

My son was three years old and it had been two years since I had actually looked at myself in the mirror. I no longer felt the need to dress myself up and look pretty. Why would I? I was ugly and exhausted anyway.

I felt old when I was only thirty. He was constantly yelling and belittling me every time we went somewhere. Nothing he did was okay or right. Clouds came before my eyes, just like the sea on a moonless night.

Becoming aware of it only made my anxiety worse

I began to feel that the life I had chosen was my responsibility, that it was all my fault. And I lied about our relationship to others. I made up excuses until I convinced everyone that my hair loss was a hormonal issue.

One day something inside me broke and my body told me enough was enough. I had a panic attack that took me straight to the gates of death. Slowly I felt that my body no longer functioned. First I lost feeling in my fingers, then in my hands and feet. Then my face, tongue, arms and legs. My breathing became uneven.

I wouldn’t wish this on anyone. To watch your body stop working little by little. My friends took me to the hospital and I had to stay there for a few nights for observation. He marched home with our child. The doctor in our small town was a psychiatrist as well as a friend. He advised me to stay at home with my boyfriend for the rest of the week to rest and recuperate.

I have learned to say ‘no’

So I started my recovery, which lasted five days until I went home. There he was waiting, on the porch. I walked up the stairs and hugged him. “I’m back and I feel so much better,” I told him. He pushed me away from him causing me to lose my balance.

He started yelling at me, but I don’t remember his words. Suddenly I couldn’t hear him anymore. I could only see how his screams, threatening movements and the violence that arose in his gestures and voice frightened me.

I was afraid, for myself and for my child, and for the friend who had come home with me. “Run!” That’s the only thing that came to my mind. But I couldn’t leave without taking my 5-year-old son with me because I was afraid he would do something to him just to hurt me. That’s what I thought he would do to get back at me. But I had done nothing!

Terrified, we left, all our hairs on end. During the drive from my house to my friend’s house, no one said a word. When we got there, we were quiet. He arrived a few minutes later. I went up to the balcony on the second floor and saw him down there.

Again he said he was sorry

But you know what? It was already too late. From the depths of my soul only one word came out. “NEW! I can’t take it anymore, I’m done with you!” I had decided to step out of the cage of emotional abuse.

Then I wished him that he would be happy on his own, because he didn’t seem to be with me, and I also told him that I loved him very much. After the divorce, all he’s done is call me with death threats. He has threatened me that he will take revenge for the humiliation.

No, we don’t want to see him. He only deals damage when he’s nearby. He pulls us down with him, my son and me. Being gone is the only way I can have what I need: peace for me and, above all, for my son. I will not allow anyone to harm him, not even his soul. It is my duty as a mother to teach him never to confuse love with humiliation and emotional abuse.

…because if someone loves you, they won’t hurt you emotionally.