True Reddit Posts

I'm Still Afraid Of My Ex..

When I was 17, I got involved with someone who was abusive. Now, you have to understand, he was incredibly charming, charismatic, and good-looking. I was this little ugly loser girl who had never had a real relationship, many friends, and was often bullied. Any time anyone good-looking was nice to me, it was always a set-up. But not with him. Yeah, I fell hard.

Things started out great. Andrew was very kind to me, said all the right things at the right time. He wanted to join the military, and sad as I was, I encouraged him because it's what he wanted. Things started to worsen when his mother's break-downs started. She was a paranoid schizophrenic, and Andrew would call me while she was having episodes, saying there were FBI agents in her trash cans coming for her. My family took him in, but being that he was under 18 as well, we couldn't legally keep him when his mother came to get him. I know his mother was sick, and we tried to help any way we could. But I soon learned how Andrew treated her. He talked to her so nasty, so berating, he would tell her when to shut up, and controlled the conversation. It was almost like SHE was afraid of HIM. Red flags started popping up, but I was young and stupid.

He slowly started wiggling between my friends. He would cut them off, and always want me around him. He hated my male friends for no reason other than that they were male. Eventually he required my passwords to sites, saying that "I would give him the passwords if I had nothing to hide." Again, stupid. But I did. He would routinely go through and delete my friends on facebook, delete messages, and keep a constant watch on me.

He started pressuring me for sex. I didn't want to at the time, but I didn't want to lose him. I didn't enjoy it, but it made him happy, so it was worth it in my mind. He really started having me under his thumb then. He told me what I could and couldn't wear, who I could and couldn't talk to. I actually had to tie the straps on my tank tops to avoid showing cleavage (since, in his words, any girl that shows even a little cleavage is a slut). I wasn't allowed to talk to other guys, not even look at them without being questioned. I wasn't allowed to wear high heels in public. No skirts, dresses, he even had to approve of my halloween costumes.

My 18th birthday rolled around and it only got worse. The fights were worse, the control was worse. He started pressuring me for marriage and children. I was NOT ready to be a bride, and certainly not a mother. I still to this day have no desire for children. But on he would push, and I had to keep pushing back. Eventually, though I gave him everything, he still cheated on me. He either cheated, or the "girl" never even existed. He was no stranger to making up fake people, I found some when I borrowed his laptop one day. And found he hacked into my art site profile and changed shit around. Of course he lied about it, but his facts weren't adding up at all and the evidence was there. I was a dumb kid, but not THAT dumb. It crushed me. I was an absolute wreck, but little dumb me stayed with him still. I even moved in with him and his mother to try and rebuild our relationship and because I was going through rough patches with my own parents. This got much, much worse.

He failed the psych test for the military. He would go into episodes of psychosis where he would cry and claim people were outside of his window coming to kill him. I didn't know how to handle any of this, I was a kid. He would cry almost every day, we would fight constantly, he even tried cutting me off from my family (I put my foot down with that one). During the fights, he started threatening violence against me and my few belongings. He hated my dog, he hated my art, hated my sister. Threatened to burn them and make me watch so I would hurt. By this point, I was terrified of him. Any time I wanted to call my mom, he would grab my arm so hard, it would leave a head-print bruise until I would drop the phone.

I started to grow numb. He would refuse me food because he wanted me thinner. He would lie about everything, even things that made no sense that he didn't have to lie about. I didn't even know if I really knew him.