Escaping the Abyss: My Journey Out of an Abusive Relationship.

I was 17 and at a party where I saw Billy. Billy was tall, dark, nice eyes and the most gorgeous hair I’ve ever seen. Billy came up to me and said I was beautiful and we introduced ourselves. He was 17 and we talked for a little bit before he asked for my number. He texted me I think you’re really cute. My heart was racing. I was never told that before. After we stopped talking at the party Billy went to hangout with his friends and I left. Billy texted and called me and we talked for hours. He asked me out and I was so excited. We had our first date which I will never in a million years forget. Billy asked me out again and we went out again. By the third date I met his family and he met mine. His family loved me. I loved them. They considered me family and they did everything for me. Home cook meals, roadtrips, I spent every big holiday with his family and birthdays also. I felt like the luckiest girl in the world. I started to like him a lot and eventually we said I love you to eachother. Our relationship was great and I couldn’t believe I was with him. He made me feel so special and I was always so happy to be around him. The first year of our relationship was perfect. We did so much in the first year that I was seeing a future with him. We graduated high school and he went to college and I was doing my thing but we managed to see eachother like everyday for study dates and he graduated college. I was so proud for him. His sister was graduating high school and I went to both. I never thought Billy was going to be the nightmare. The second year of us was where it went all wrong. I gained like a pound and he told me I’m fat. I cried and he apologized and I forgave him. He never said anything like that again. The next occurrence was we went to see a show and he lost the tickets. I was trying to find the tickets and he had such an attitude and started yelling, cursing, screaming and tried to slap me. I ran into the other room and hid. He blamed me for losing them. I never found them after searching everywhere. I hid in the bathroom after the incident and he knocked on the door. Apologized and said he was just stressed out. I forgave him. Everything went back to normal until I got a text message from my best friend. Billy grabbed my phone and asked me what is this? My best friend asked to hangout. Billy accused me of cheating with my best friend. I said I’m not cheating. He accused me of sleeping with everyone which was fake. I never cheated. I proved to him that I wasn’t do anything to anyone. He got so controlling that I wasn’t allowed to have friends or talk to anyone. He checked my phone, email, Facebook or whatever social media I have to see if I was doing anything. It got so bad that I was finally told I couldn’t dress a certain way or have makeup on. I had to be all covered up and couldn’t show any skin. He finally started telling me again that I was fat. I was told I’m stupid, worthless, ugly, nobody will love me for me, I couldn’t do what I wanted. Billy was controlling my every move. He was manipulating. He finally kept calling me horrible names and put me on diets to lose weight. I started to hate my body. I hated what he was doing. I believed him. I thought maybe I am everything he said. I did Invisalign for me. I got a haircut with highlights. He hated it. He said I was changing for another man. Billy made me feel so insecure about myself that I finally decided maybe I want to fix myself with plastic surgery. Billy wanted me to quit my job and give up my dreams. I finally broke down and told my best friend and my family what’s been going on. I couldn’t sleep or eat. I was losing weight. I felt horrible about myself. Billy made me break my foot because he banged it into the wall while it was asleep and I couldn’t walk on it and it hurt like hell. He told me I was stupid enough to do that. That it was my fault. I was blamed for everything that he did. I finally gave up on who I was. I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror. His words were always in my head. I couldn’t focus. I felt like my world was crumbling because of Billy verbally hurting me. I lost my friends because of him. I was so close to having no family because he was isolating me from them. I thought about suicide and just couldn’t live like this anymore. I had a plan to end it but I didn’t know how. So he called me and left a threatening voicemail and I was so scared and crying. That was the last straw for me. I told my mom and she ended it for me. She knew everything that was going on because I told her and she couldn’t believe it. She told me it was an abusive relationship. I was so grateful that she dumped him for me since I was really afraid of what he might do. It took me like a year and a half to realize that I was safe. Billy and I talked after the breakup but I don’t want to be friends or anything with him. The relationship ended when I was 24 because of him. I sleep great now. I’m not afraid of what he’ll do. I’m eating. I dress the way I want. I finally accepted myself. I’ve made new friends and kept my passion. The verbal scars are still there but I will never go back to him. He’s got a new GF and I remain single because of him. This is my story.