I blame myself

[gonnamakeit]

I was googling ways to recover from an abusive relationship and I can upon this site and I thought I would ask for some help.... I just can't take the sleepless nights and the tears anymore. I just want some way to recover from what's happened, I want some way to feel good about myself.

 

Basically there was this guy that I knew for a really long time, he always seemed sort of shady and I didn't like the way he treated girls.... and he always was pursuing me romantically and I always rejected him. I've been in "bad" relationships, where the guys were jerks, they weren't particularly abusive but they always left me in low spirits and feeling bad about myself. I always blamed myself for everything.

 

And so yeah, back to the point, this guy that's giving me hell in the present, I nerve liked him or trusted him, my gut always told me there was something wrong with him and I just... I told myself it was because I liked him better as a friend. And I often confided in him as a friend and I really really started to trust him as a friend. I've known him for three years now.

 

And anyway... so eventually he started to really heavily sweet talk me, he said things that nobody had ever said to me before, he was just so horribly nice and our dogs died around the same time, and I guess I bonded to him over that.

 

So basically after a couple of weeks of him sweet talking me mostly over the phone and over text, I gave him and I started to develop a crush on him. Some tiny part of me was always distrusting him but I ignored it and just... *sigh* i told myself that I was being too judgmental and paranoid and that I needed to be more open and accepting.

 

And finally we got together.

 

And of course he was really really sweet to me, the things he said to me were just so wonderful, thought he never really said them in person he would just send me little messages, sweet kind things that made me smile and feel so good about myself. I'd never really thought highly of myself... I didn't particularly hate myself, I just never thought I was anything special and I never thought I deserved to be treated special.

 

So when he said I was special and wonderful and all that ... I fell in like a moth to the flame.

 

He has a long history of being a sweet talker, before I got with him, I would watch him flirt with girls and get the girls all in love with him by calling them pretty and treating them special but then he would drop and they would come crawling to his feet. I just sort of thought he was doing it because he was young and wanted attention. (This was when he was 15-16, we started to date when we were both 18)

 

I didn't realize how horrible he really was. I didn't realize how bad things would get.

 

Basically, he started out really really kind and attentive and sweet.

 

But then gradually, he started with little insults, little negative comments about things I loved to do, things I cared about didn't seem to matter to him. I didn't think much of it and I would just banter back and brush it off even if it hurt, I just told myself I was too sensitive.

 

It got worse, he just got really negative and dark. He did a lot of drugs and drinking and he got a DUI, and after he got a DUI is when he started to become really really hateful. I just kept trying to change myself so he wouldn't be so annoyed with me. I thought maybe I was too positive so I started to try to do things he would like....

 

Sex started out as a mutual affectionate thing, I always thought it made us closer and I always thought that it was our private thing. He started to use it to control me, if he wanted sex I would have to give it to him, but if I so much as asked for a little sweet talking I was being too demanding. All I wanted was to be close to him the way we were when we first got together, he just started to push me away and push me down and hurt me a lot.

 

I started to distance myself from my friends and family and neglected my studies and my book writing. I become his pet sort of, I would wait for him to call me, wait for his say, his order, his command.

 

And he always played it off like I was some little dog and he would sort of take my praise and affection like it was his birthright, he acted like a king receiving flowers from a peasant. I wasn't special at all, I didn't get any special treatment or compliments, and the few little compliments I got were always backhanded and ended up making me feel like an insignificant grain of sand just because he seemed to be tossing them to me like "Here take this and go back to your corner and shut up, I can't be bothered with you."

 

He just started to turn into someone so cold and cruel.

 

And I started to change myself so that I could make him happy, but nothing I ever did was good enough. There was nothing I could do to make him happy and he even admitted it.

 

"I just don't DO happy" is what he always said.

 

He just became so cruel and I was sort of in shock, I'd never seen him act the way he was acting. Ignoring me and putting me off and forgetting to call me for weeks, not texting me at all or speaking to me for days, and weeks. And then he'd come back and ask me why I was upset and if I dared say anything he would start telling me that he was just too busy and that I was being clingy, and I agreed with him and so I started to bite my tongue, even when he was doing things that I really didn't like, things that made me really uncomfortable, I sort of became his servant in a way, all I focused on was how I could do better to please him, what I could change about myself to make him like me more and maybe he wouldn't treat me so bad if I wasn't so this/that

 

We started doing BDSM and he was always the one hitting and slapping and choking ... and I guess I liked it.... but some part of me felt that it wasn't about love anymore it was about him pushing me down and humiliating me, he always talked about wanting a three-way and I really didn't like the idea but he kept pushing it until I forced myself to accept it. It just made me sick and it seemed to be okay for him to do whatever he wanted and ignore me, but if I missed a call from him he would call dozens of times and make me feel guilty for not answering.

 

And when I was going through a rough time and tried to lean on him he would tell me to just "get over it that's life" and he always seemed to be too busy to give me any real comfort.

 

But then when he was going to court for his DUI, I did everything I could to make sure he felt better and make sure he knew I loved him and supported him.

 

I can remember one night I started to pour my heart out to him and tell him how much I cared about him, and tell him that everything he was upset about would be alright, and he got really angry at me and hateful to me and said "I'm not in the mood for a quasi-motivational pep talk okay?"

 

... and that just really crushed me ... through everything .... it was the first time I truly started to hate myself because of him. "If I wasn't so affectionate ... if I wasn't so emotional"

 

"Maybe if I didn't cry so much, maybe if I wasn't so sensitive"

 

I just kept blaming myself for everything.

 

And then I started to get really angry and hateful, and I started to play into his game.

 

He would ignore everything nice I said, and if I dared to say something that wasn't praise and affection, he would start attacking me.

 

"Well you're not so nice after all" was his attitude toward me, he looked down on me, he judged me. I could just feel it in the way he looked at me.

 

It was like, if I wasn't a quiet perfect girl who let him stomp all over me and do whatever he wanted, I wasn't good enough.

 

I was always admitting to my faults, I always tried to tell him that I wasn't perfect but it didn't give him any right to treat me the way he was treating me... but he would just blindly attack me like I was a complete stranger, and he never admitted that he'd ever done anything wrong.

 

"Well what exactly did I do wrong."

 

And somehow in that statement my whole body would freeze up and I couldn't speak... it made me sick to my stomach... I'm not the kind of person who collects actions and holds them against people.... I don't do that to people, I like to understand people's feelings and help people and be a true friend... I was turning into somebody else. I didn't recognize myself anymore.

 

The things I said, the things I started doing....

it wasn't me.

 

And its like, he looked down on me from a high cloud of virgin purity, and I was the dirty needy idiot.

 

I still feel that I am... even as I'm writing this, I'm actually scared he's going to find it somehow and contact me and tell me how worthless I am all over again.

 

I started to harm myself because I felt so guilty and I didn't understand why I felt guilty.

 

And his taunting just kept on subtle in the background, and everytime I said something cruel to him trying to defend myself, it's like he would come down with lightening and choke me with my own words and I couldn't help but hear "You're not such a nice person after all"

 

I can't help but feel this whole thing centered around the fact that for a long time I had rejected his advances and I didn't dance around and praise him for everything he said. It's almost like... he couldn't stand the fact that someone he pursued wasn't bowing down at his feet and worshiping him... He always had this glint his eye like there was something else he was thinking.

 

I could never trust him, he always sprung things on me.

 

Like when he got the DUI, he disappeared for three days, he went out partying and drinking and no-doubt cheating on me, and he came back with that.... it was as if I was the one who had done it, he punished me for something he had done. It's like I was waiting for him to forgive me for something he had done.

 

And of course I just told him it was fine, it was fine... I wouldn't judge him, I loved him, I would support him.

 

And the few moments when I got weak and said something hateful to him trying to defend myself, trying to tell him that he was hurting me.... he would call me a liar and a bitch.

 

And he always told me he didn't want support, he always told me to shut up and stop talking. We only did things that he wanted to do, it never had anything to do with what I wanted. I would crawl to his feet and offer him everything I had and he would crush it and tell me how it wasn't good enough.

 

And I really didn't ask for much, I never wanted him to buy me anything, and he never did, and I was okay with that. I stopped asking him to talk to me and be with me... it got to the point where all i wanted was perhaps a little text once in a while. And he said I was interfering with his life. His life of cheating on me and partying.

 

...

 

 

And finally I snapped, I started to have panic attacks and anxiety attacks and I had separated myself from everything and everyone I cared about. Everything I did he insulted, the small things that made me happy, that meant something to me, he insulted and condemned... while if I dared say something against his drug or drinking or partying addictions .... I "didn't understand" and he would just degrade me until I was in tears.

 

I mean... on my birthday he had sex with me and it ended with me crying myself to sleep.

 

I just started to feel unhappy about everything, he destroyed everything I loved and he became the only thing I "loved" ........ It's like he wanted me to be obsessed with him just so he could wave me off like I was a pathetic puppy asking for attention.

 

I just... turned into someone else....

I lost myself, and all my friends tried to tell me to break up with him, they tried to tell me to leave.

 

But I told myself that he was just suffering and I should stay by his side and see him through...

 

I told myself it was my fault, I was too sensitive, too emotional. I was the problem.

 

But my mom finally tried to shake some sense into me when she found out that I was harming myself because of him, and so I started to really try to stand up for myself and ask for some respect from him.

 

To which I was met with more insults, more crushing, more guilt.

 

I ended up trying to kill myself, and almost succeeded a few times. I just hated myself, and the world seemed so empty, life seemed so pointless to me, all I could feel was pain and misery. He made everything look so empty and void of any love or compassion.

 

He blamed me for the harm and the suicide attempts. He made me feel guilty even about those. He stopped saying he loved me, he started to treat me like every thing he did for me was a burden, even though he never really did anything at all. He only did things for me that were convient for him, and those were very far and few inbetween. And like I said, I never asked him to buy me anything, I never expected him to do anything special... all I really wanted was for him to say he loved me once in a while.

 

For christmas I painted some paintings for him, I spent days carefully pouring my heart out with paint and brush, I made them perfect for him, I thought maybe if I could give them to him, he would see how much I loved him and maybe he would stop being so cruel to me.

 

He didn't even want to see them.

 

And Christmas night I was left alone in the dark crying, hating myself. Blaming myself after we got into a huge fight.

 

Feeling like I was the worst person in the whole entire world. I was just a clingy bitch who needed to get a life.

... But I didn't want life anymore. Because everything was empty and unreal.

 

And I stopped trying to stand up for myself because he would just remind me of any mistake I had made, like the self harm and suicide attempts... he used everything I did that wasn't perfect against me. He took every flaw, and turned it into a bullet and shot me straight through the heart.

 

He took every weakness and he exploited it.

 

He drove me into a hole of despair and insanity, and I told myself it was all my fault.

 

I was just saying sorry all the time, and eventually he told me that sorry wasn't good enough. But I kept saying it, and I don't really know why, I just felt so sorry. I don't really know what I was sorry for. I just know everything was my fault. ....

 

 

He left me with no where to turn, everything I did and said was wrong to him. He isolated me, he put me in a box and put me away. Like I was some kind of used toy that didn't excite him anymore. Like I wasn't enough to please him.

 

 

Finally something inside of me broke and I wrote a long email to him, telling him that we were through.

 

 

And now I sit here with all the hateful words he said in reply to me bouncing around in my head. I can't escape the little voice in my heart telling me that it's all my fault. He cheated on me through the course of the entire relationship with his ex girlfriend (who was really cruel to me too), he exploited every secret I had ever told him. He twisted me into a million pieces and I can't seem to get out of it. I can just hear him trash talking me to his girlfriend, I can hear them in my mind talking about all the private things I'd told him. Him telling her all the things I'd never want anyone to know.

 

 

I tell myself I shouldn't care.

 

I tell myself it's not my fault.

 

 

But I do care. Even now I still love him. I miss him. I just want him to come back and be the way he was in the beginning. And I know I shouldn't.

 

 

And more than anything I just blame myself. It's all my fault. It's just... all my fault. I did something wrong. I can't really say what. I don't understand how I'm feeling. I don't know what to do.

 

Everyone is telling me he was abusing me, but all I can think about is everything wrong I did, all the mean things I might have said to him in the heat of the moment. I just feel so bad. I'm not that kind of person but yet I became that kind of person.

 

Some moments I stand up and I can feel better about myself, because he's not there to hurt me anymore or push me down.

 

But somehow he IS still there. In my memories, tormenting me still ... reaching through and choking the life out of me in the dark of the night when I'm all alone. I can't sleep anymore. I stay awake shaking thinking about everything that happened, I still can't believe it.

 

I don't want to believe it.

 

And when I do manage to sleep, I have nightmares. Horrible horrible nightmares of him raping me and choking me.

 

How can I make this stop, How can I ever learn to trust another guy? I just wish I'd never, ever met my ex. I wish he'd never been in my life at all. He was poison. Total poison.....

 

And I became so addicted to the this little gentle touches and the "i love you" that I blocked out all the cruel, cruel things he did. He was perfect and I was the one who was privileged to be with him.

 

 

I just want to be myself again, I want him out of me. I want to erase all the memories, all the feelings.

 

I just ... I want to be free.

 

And I haven't harmed myself or anything since I broke up with him.

Now that he's gone I don't want to do it anymore. I really don't want to, and when I look at these scars and still-healing gashes, I just can't imagine what I was thinking when I did them.

 

I am so afraid of men now, whenever a guy tries to flirt with me I get sick to my stomach and I just think he'll just hurt me the way my ex hurt me.

 

I just want to be myself again I want to heal. I know I can't heal overnight...

 

But is there anything I can do to make it go... even a little bit faster? I want to get back into my life... I want to live again.

 

I want to forget all of this happened.

I seem to feel better and stronger around other people. but at night when I'm alone in bed I just feel like he's going to come out of the dark and hurt me and I'm just so afraid and broken. I hate being alone now because it's like my own memories are against me.

 

I just want to go back to being myself.

 

I think most of all I'm afraid he's going to retaliate, he has nude pictures of me and I'm terrified he might come back and try to use them against me.

 

I just want him to fade away from my life, I want to forget about it all.

 

I'm so afraid and broken and scared.

 

I just want it all to go away and be a bad dream. I wish it never happened. It just seemed to consume me, I felt and still feel powerless and helpless...

 

Everyone around me, my friends and family, are really really supportive and loving. But I am still tormented when I'm alone, and it's too much to ask someone to sleep in my room with me ... they would if I asked but i would just feel bad.

 

I just want it to stop.

[Zahara]

gonnamakeit! And you definitely are going to make it!

 

I'm so sorry you had to endure such abuse. Your ex sounds like someone that is very narcissistic, almost socipathic and while I am not one to diagnose someone, just by reading symptoms of a Narcissistic Personality disordered person, he checks every box (read about it). Specifically how he suddenly turned cruel -- the over-evaluation of you, the devaluation and subsequently then discarding you. Maybe that will help you realize that it wasn't about you and that his behavior wasn't normal.

 

Abusive relationships are very hard to get over. You have been conditioned a certain way -- to be submissive and controlled and therefore the chains in which you are bound by are very hard to break. Along with that -- as they call it the Stockholm Syndrome -- we attach/bond to the abuser and even when you realize it's crazy to still love your captor, you do so because you've psychologically bonded with the abuser. Read about it.

 

You should make it a point to see a counselor or a therapist. You need to figure out how you got here and how you can avoid allowing yourself to be manipulated and abused again. You need to find coping skills when you feel anxious, scared and worried and a therapist can help you through with that. You must find ways to rebuild your sense of self. Start venturing into things that you loved doing. Start taking little steps that help you to recognize who you once were.

 

It is going to take a long time before you come out of this fog. But you know it isn't going to always stay this way because you are now free from him -- and that was the biggest hurdle. You are not his captive anymore. But please, see a professional so you can better cope through this and have at least a sounding board that can reinforce the right and wrong/the bad and good because for now, you can't see clearly.

Edited January 8, 2014 by Zahara

[Hopeful714]

Gonnamakeit-

 

Welcome to what was my world.

Welcome to Loveshack. You found the right place!

 

I was in your situation a while ago...and now I'm almost 100% recovered! You can read a brief synopsis of my story below in a thread titled "one year later".

 

Im going to make you a list of things you need to do pronto. If you want to recover from this, follow it! No exceptions. It may take a while, but you will recover. I promise.

 

1.) Don't talk to this guy anymore. Disappear completely....provided you do not NEED to see him ie: school, work. Eventually he will come creeping around you again (they all do...to see if your still hooked). Don't answer a no matter how tempted you are. And, if you must...text back something very generic with no emotion so that he thinks you are fine and not affected by this. Better yet, block your phone and get rid of any on line contacts with him.

 

2.) Read. Read. Read. Read the guide to no contact (NC) that you can easily find on this site. Its a must! Read posts. Read about abuse, read about personality disorders. The more you read you will realize that this has nothing to do about you at all. Believe it or not, guys like him come a dime a dozen. The problem is him. Not you. The only thing wrong you did was not to follow your own intuition and gut. There are so many views you can get from this forum and much good advice from very, very wise posters who have been right where you are now. Commit yourself to getting over this.

 

3.) Because you were harming yourself, I would suggest a counselor if you are not feeling any better in the very near future.

 

Start your reading. Make a counseling appt. And come back with your feelings and questions. We are here to help.

 

Chances are this guy knew you were a big challenge, and that's one of the reasons why you were targeted.

 

Lastly, take good care of yourself. Force yourself to eat and get good sleep. If you can exercise do it. Hope to hear from you soon!