I was 19 years old when I met my abuser, Well keep names out of it for the sake of the memories in my mind.
She was the best person I ever met. Being in a new state and only knowing one person, I thought it was the greatest idea for me to move out with her. What I didn’t know was that the next 8 years of my life would be a complete whirlwind of mental, physical and emotional abuse. Little did I know, she was fresh out of rehab, with a record of assault and I still thought I could fix her.
It started with words, I became a “stupid b*tch” because I didn’t wash the dishes in the order she liked. I was belittled because we shared intimate moments and they turned into hurtful words because I was washing my body before I washed my hair.
One day she got so drunk while we were out for lunch, she took drugs, and as I was driving us home, her screaming at me while I drove, decided she was going to grab the wheel, causing us to nearly crash into a cranberry bog filled with water. I never spoke out or told anyone what happened, the mental and emotional abuse continued for years, the next time shed lay hands on me was when a golf club hit my knee cap. Went to the hospital alone, stitches alone, and I lied about how it happened too. I started using drugs with her to numb the pain of the words she threw at me.
I disappeared from family for 2 years, not intentionally but every time they asked me how i was doing i had to lie, I always found it in me to tell them “I was fine” So many years of abuse and mistreatment one day, after we were just co-exsisting together, she brought over people who were trying to hurt me, threatened me and made me scared for my own life. It wasn’t the first time as she threatened she wanted to strangle me in my sleep many times, but it was the last time i let her run me and my mind. I moved out.
The freedom I had after I left was exactly what I thought I needed, but i was damaged in ways I never even thought of. I became a shell within myself and didnt know self love. I went to the gym and became who i thought was a better me.
2 1/2 yeard after I left her, covid-19 had struck and every single emotion, feeling, situation and all of the abuse came to the front of my brain and i was faced with the worst feelings ever. The panic, the anxiety and the memories of my past all came back to me when I had noone with me in my 900sqft apartment but my own thoughts.
I broke down, I decided enough was enough, i tried to end my life twice when her words struck me like a knife, she always told me she’d watch, if I decided to end my life. I decided I wouldn’t let that feeling take over me again.I sought help and got a diagnosis that really shook me up, How was this possible? why me? but it made sense, anxious mind, panic mode. Do i fight this, or take off like a plane in flight?
Anxiety, panic disorder, complex PTSD. This is just a shell of who I’ve become, I always feel like my mind is at war, but the medications make me go numb. Chemical imbalances in my brain, the medications I take are to help me feel sane.
This is my story. Every day is a new day and I know I’m not alone.
