Please help! Abuse is destroying me!

[LilBrokenOne]

Please help! No one will help me understand :-(

 

About two years ago I fell deeply in love with a man who I thought was a good man. I mean it was love at first sight, and the kind of love that others looked at and said, "that is real love. I wish I had that." For seven months things were fine, but then the abuse began.

 

He would do terrible things to me - chase me with sharp weapons, threaten to knock my teeth out, throw me into walls, slap me, shatter my windshield, drag me by the hair, spit on me, verbally assault me, try to break my finger etc.

 

Having never been around something like this before and having fallen so deeply in love with him, (and he was my first) I was stunned. I tried to excuse it by telling myself that he was drunk when these things happened. He is also a manic depressive, and my friends told me that I had to understand that he was crazy and not like other people and alcohol exacerbates this problem. I also told myself it was not a big deal because he had never really hurt me physically. I mean, sure he had been physically violent, but it never hurt. And only one time had he scarred me (when he drug me by the hair across his porch my leg scraped the cement.) So I did not think it was that big of a deal.

 

He also turned out to be very sexually abusive. He always talked me into doing the things that were abusive sexually, but these things really started to bother me. At first it was harmless but then it grew. Like one time he slapped me so hard in the middle of things that I could not help but start crying. He was very apologetic though, so I tried to tell myself it was not a big deal. But he would always call me names during this, and would beat me with his belt and talk about things that were even worse that he wanted to do. I started to think I deserved this. I felt like I was loosing myself and became so unhappy.

 

He really began to frighten me more and more and I started living in fear. I stopped going to see him so often and when I would go to see him I was so afraid. What was he going to do? Would he get mad and hurt me? It was making me so anxious and fearful. Then he made threats. Like, "if you ever leave me I could not handle it and I would do something that would put me away for life." Another time I saw him beat a woman and I was so upset and shaking and when I told him how upset I was he said to me, "well, now you know to never mess with me. That is what happens when people mess with me."

 

Then something happened that scared me even more. We were out at a bar and a bird flew into the window and fell to the ground. It was unable to fly and I was so upset I got a towel and asked him to hold it while I went inside to find out who I could take the bird to to save its life. He was upset and said that the bird would be fine, that he did not want to go anywhere. But I went inside anyways and when I came out the bird was gone. He said it had died in his hands! I did not believe him and asked where it was. He said it was in the dumpster.

 

I went back to the dumpster and took it out and told him I wanted to take it to my friends house and bury it in the back yard rather than leave it in the dumpster. He got so angry and refused to go, saying that I was ruining the night over this bird. Finally he agreed to go after we had argued about it, and he sulked in the car the whole way there. We buried it and on the way back to the bar he said something that frightened me. He said that he studies serial killers and that one of the things about them is that they like to hurt animals. I asked him why he studies this and he said he finds it interesting.

 

I was so scared. Did he kill the bird? Just so that we did not have to leave the bar to help it? I did not know but if he did he would hurt anything without thinking! Like one time he scared me when he was talking dirty to me like he likes to he said, "I want to F_ _ _ you to death" and I got up and was like, "WHAT?"

 

I am working so hard to get away from him. I have not gone to see him since the end of July but have been in contact with him and he claims he wants to marry me and for some stupid reason I love him terribly.

 

I just do not understand why now I have this incredible self-hatred for myself. I mean I really hate myself in ways that are frightening. Is this normal? Why would these things cause such self-hatred? I feel like this bad person who deserves all of these things and I do not come from a background where men beat women or did these things and I am so confused as to why this has affected me so terribly. I hear stories about women who lived with it for years and years and years. I only dated this man and did not live with him and it did not go on for years and years and years yet I am so scarred by this. Why? Is this normal to hate myself so much? He used to tell me when he would hold my head down and hit me, "it feels good to be beaten down" and I hated it but now a part of me feels like I hate myself so much that I should just let myself be put in those situations because I deserve it. Is this normal?

 

Please help! No one will help me understand this and I am thinking I am crazy or something. Why did this abuse do this to me? I dont think it was that bad! Some women really get HURT and black and blue and put in the hospital and go through much worse! Please help. Please!

[Maria46]

It is terribly hard to remove yourself from an abusive relationship when your self esteem has been torn apart. You need to love yourself and realize that this relationship is sick.

 

Please contact a counselor and start working on your self esteem issue. Your counselor will help you understand why you are there and why you have put up with this abuse.

 

I have been in your situation and put up with it for years as well. I did not seek counseling then. He was driving drunk and got killed in a wreck. I can honestly tell you that I am alive now only because he was killed.

 

Please do not stay in that relationship any longer. You will end up in a hospital or dead. Do not believe that "it won't happen again" as you know it will and it has and will continue to happen.

 

My thoughts are with you.

[Outcast]

You must immediately contact your local domestic violence centre and learn how to save your life. This man likely killed that bird and it is a very strong correlation that people who kill animals deliberately in such a manner will also kill people.

 

I dont think it was that bad!

 

You are not in love with him.

You have been sucked into his sickness in a way you cannot understand. You must NOT go back to him or you will die. No human being should be treated the way he was treating you. You are seriously mistaken if you think the injuries need to show in order for it to be abuse or wrong. What he is doing is criminal.

 

Do you understand? He is sick beyond sick. There is no 'why' about it other than perhaps the alcohol and illness have damaged his brain. He will never, ever be fixed, nice, or better. You keep thinking 'if only' he would go back to how it was at the beginning but it will NEVER EVER go back that way.

 

He is a dangerous human being.

 

Call your domestic violence centre or the police and ask them for a referral to the domestic violence centre. Do it immediately.

[d'Arthez]

Please help! No one will help me understand :-(

He would do terrible things to me - chase me with sharp weapons, threaten to knock my teeth out, throw me into walls, slap me, shatter my windshield, drag me by the hair, spit on me, verbally assault me, try to break my finger etc.

That is clearly excessive behavior. Chasing you with sharp weapons? WTF? Does he think he is serving in Iraq at the moment? You should not settle for this.

 

Having never been around something like this before and having fallen so deeply in love with him, (and he was my first) I was stunned. I tried to excuse it by telling myself that he was drunk when these things happened.

That is a rationalization. It can explain perhaps that it happened, it cannot justify that it happened.

 

He is also a manic depressive, and my friends told me that I had to understand that he was crazy and not like other people and alcohol exacerbates this problem.

A personality disorder is no excuse to treat people bad. He is using that, as an excuse. Self-medication with alcohol (if he is on medicines) only excaberates the problem. It will get worse, and worse, and worse, with no forecast of improving - just for you a glimmer of hope that will be smashed time and again. Practically all medication, such as Lithium and Depakote do not work, when the person is drinking.

He cannot behave in a decent fashion, because he does not allow himself to be in a position that he can do so.

 

I also told myself it was not a big deal because he had never really hurt me physically. I mean, sure he had been physically violent, but it never hurt. And only one time had he scarred me (when he drug me by the hair across his porch my leg scraped the cement.) So I did not think it was that big of a deal.

You are now offering rationalizations to yourself, on why you should stay. The first 7 months are over, and now you see the true colors of the man. It is a big deal - there is absolutely no indication that it will remain harmless on a physical level. It certainly has been shown that it is not harmless on an emotional level.

 

He also turned out to be very sexually abusive. He always talked me into doing the things that were abusive sexually, but these things really started to bother me.

That is very well possible, with someone who is manic depressive and not under effective treatment. That does not excuse his behavior, nor justify it. It only explains a bit of his behavior, but that is all. And try to look from a distance: if someone treated a friend like that, you'd probably be the first to advice that that relationship was harmful.

 

At first it was harmless but then it grew. Like one time he slapped me so hard in the middle of things that I could not help but start crying. He was very apologetic though, so I tried to tell myself it was not a big deal. But he would always call me names during this, and would beat me with his belt and talk about things that were even worse that he wanted to do. I started to think I deserved this. I felt like I was loosing myself and became so unhappy.

That is the result of the emotional abuse. You justify the abuse to yourself, as you somehow feel to deserve it. Afterall he was a wonderful man in the first 7 months. You cling to the old image you had formed of him, but with that have difficulty to grasp the reality of him, after these 7 months.

 

He really began to frighten me more and more and I started living in fear. I stopped going to see him so often and when I would go to see him I was so afraid. What was he going to do? Would he get mad and hurt me? It was making me so anxious and fearful.

Which is completely understandable. You were withdrawing because you realized that this was not healthy for you at all.

 

Then he made threats. Like, "if you ever leave me I could not handle it and I would do something that would put me away for life." Another time I saw him beat a woman and I was so upset and shaking and when I told him how upset I was he said to me, "well, now you know to never mess with me. That is what happens when people mess with me."

Here you have the proof that he has no problem with beating a woman for "messing" with him. Read "messing" as "I don't get my way", and you know that this spells out severe trouble for you.

 

Then something happened that scared me even more. We were out at a bar and a bird flew into the window and fell to the ground. It was unable to fly and I was so upset I got a towel and asked him to hold it while I went inside to find out who I could take the bird to to save its life. He was upset and said that the bird would be fine, that he did not want to go anywhere. But I went inside anyways and when I came out the bird was gone. He said it had died in his hands! I did not believe him and asked where it was. He said it was in the dumpster.

Cruelty to someone or something that is completely without defence does not bode too well, does it? The fact that he was upset that you tried to save the bird, is a sign of his malicious intents on that moment. If he can treat a harmless creature like that, there is no reason to assume that he will be friendlier with you or anyone.

 

I went back to the dumpster and took it out and told him I wanted to take it to my friends house and bury it in the back yard rather than leave it in the dumpster. He got so angry and refused to go, saying that I was ruining the night over this bird. Finally he agreed to go after we had argued about it, and he sulked in the car the whole way there. We buried it and on the way back to the bar he said something that frightened me. He said that he studies serial killers and that one of the things about them is that they like to hurt animals. I asked him why he studies this and he said he finds it interesting.

Interesting? Unless he has an obsession with violence and murder, I would think otherwise. At least he has no problem with commiting violence himself, so if anything, be prepared for the worst.

 

I was so scared. Did he kill the bird? Just so that we did not have to leave the bar to help it? I did not know but if he did he would hurt anything without thinking! Like one time he scared me when he was talking dirty to me like he likes to he said, "I want to F_ _ _ you to death" and I got up and was like, "WHAT?"

Chances are extremely high that he killed the bird. His reactions to your proposal to get a towel don't make sense otherwise. And how did the bird end up in the dumpster then?

 

I am working so hard to get away from him. I have not gone to see him since the end of July but have been in contact with him and he claims he wants to marry me and for some stupid reason I love him terribly.

You fool yourself in believing that you love him. You love the man of the first 7 months. Not this guy. And marriage would be a disaster, as you would be his victim for his tantrums and abusive behaviors for 24/7.

 

I just do not understand why now I have this incredible self-hatred for myself. I mean I really hate myself in ways that are frightening. Is this normal? Why would these things cause such self-hatred?

Perhaps because you are still part of a situation, in which according to your feelings you should not be. And the longer you remain in contact with this man, the more intense it will become. All the abuse you have suffered from him, is something you don't deserve. But you have accepted it, for such a long time, that the experience of self-hatred is only natural.

 

I feel like this bad person who deserves all of these things and I do not come from a background where men beat women or did these things and I am so confused as to why this has affected me so terribly.

Because no human being deserves to be treated like that, it has affected you so terribly. You have experienced what you held for impossible - probably you would have thought that it only happens to women who really "asked" for it.

 

I hear stories about women who lived with it for years and years and years. I only dated this man and did not live with him and it did not go on for years and years and years yet I am so scarred by this. Why? Is this normal to hate myself so much? He used to tell me when he would hold my head down and hit me, "it feels good to be beaten down" and I hated it but now a part of me feels like I hate myself so much that I should just let myself be put in those situations because I deserve it. Is this normal?

No, that is not normal. As a result of the whole experience, it is normal however. But these are emotional scars you have gotten, in the course of this abusive relationship. Leaving such a relationship is extremely hard. And dealing with the effects of the abuse is hard too.

 

Please help! No one will help me understand this and I am thinking I am crazy or something. Why did this abuse do this to me? I dont think it was that bad! Some women really get HURT and black and blue and put in the hospital and go through much worse! Please help. Please!

You are offering yourself rationalizations, to make his behavior seem more acceptable than it is. You are unable to grasp the damage that he has done to you, emotionally. In your thoughts. In your conception of intimacy, and what not.

 

As Outcast wrote, get out of his life, go to a Domestic Violence center, and consider therapy, to deal with your issues. You don't need to let such a man ruin your life.

[lindya]

Please help! No one will help me understand :-(

 

About two years ago I fell deeply in love with a man who I thought was a good man. I mean it was love at first sight, and the kind of love that others looked at and said, "that is real love. I wish I had that." For seven months things were fine, but then the abuse began.

 

Of course you fell in love. You met someone who had sufficient insight to work out what exactly what sort of man you were looking for, and good enough acting skills to present himself as being that very man. It will have been quite a strain for him to spend 7 months pretending he was something other than an obnoxious and extremely violent misogynist,

 

The first couple of abusive incidents could be explained away by drink, depression - whatever it is he uses to justify his aggression towards women. Test it out, and see whether you accept the excuse. Slowly but surely he took you to a place where, as a matter of routine, you'd be abused, threatened with weapons... and exposed to violence being used against other women. I'm willing to bet that he encouraged you to watch increasingly violent porn with him - partly to break down your boundaries, but also to show you what happens to women who think they can "mess men around". Not suggesting all men who watch that sort of stuff are offenders (I don't want to spark off yet another porn row) but it is something that many violent offenders use as a tool of the trade.

 

It would be an idea for you to identify and chat to a few professionals who work with violent offenders in your area. That way you can get a more authoritative view of the extent to which a lot of their violent behaviour is actually pre-planned. At the moment you're taking on responsibility for his behaviour. Convincing yourself that there must be something badly wrong with you before a) you'd be subjected to it, and b) you'd stay with him despite the abuse. You've been subjected to a formula that involves breaking you down, and your reaction to - and feelings about - this is not abnormal. You're going to need all the support you can get in order to escape this situation and rediscover the person you were before he started terrorising your life.

[bluechocolate]

LilBrokenOne - you need more help than you can get from a message board. Hopefully this is the catalyst to get you going to seek that help.

 

Call your domestic violence centre or the police and ask them for a referral to the domestic violence centre. Do it immediately.

 

A victim of domestic violence once posted here the story about the frog. Do you now that one?

 

If you place a frog in a pot of boiling water it will immediately jump out in order to save it's life. However, if you place a frog in a pot of cold water & then slowly bring it to the boil it will stay in the pot until it is boiled to death.

 

Stay with this man & you're going to end up in the hospital or in the morgue.

[LilBrokenOne]

Thank you so much to everyone for the replies and the thoughtful advice :-)

 

I need to hear from others because everyone I know seems to accept it and I cannot get any advice or help from them. I always assumed men who beat women were terrible people and that our society would never tolerate it. It is strange how I discovered that not only does our society tolerate it but when put in the situation myself, I was unable to walk away with the refusal to tolerate it myself that I always assumed I would have. It is hard to explain to people who have not been through it how it wears you down, like the proverbial frog in the boiling water that bluechocolate mentioned, until you find yourself trapped by some new bonds created in yourself. It should be so easy to say to yourself, "enough of this!" and just walk away but somehow it does not work like that.

 

I think lindya was right about how these men work. Lindya mentioned the porn issue and was right because he did introduce porn to my life and it was of a violent nature. And it did grow more violent. He would not only use videos but he would email me video clips of things he would say he wanted to do, and started sending me pornographic stories that he found on the internet of things that were becoming just so far out there. I got to the point where if an email had a file attached I just would not open it because I knew what it would contain and I did not want to see that. I did not want to become the sort of person he seemed to want me to become and I felt like he was trying to turn me into this slutty object. It was making me feel like I was loosing more and more of myself.

 

I had to stop seeing him because I almost had a complete collapse. I could not think or function and I felt like something was about to burst inside of me and I felt so much fear and anxiety that I told someone I did not think I was going to be able to function much longer in the world. I forced myself to stop seeing him, and have not seen him since the end of July although he has been in contact with me (asking me to be with him).

 

The sad thing is, I really did love him. I would have never chosen him - but it was really love at first sight and so powerful that from the first moment I knew we were connected in some unexplainable way. People wait their whole lives to feel what I felt and it only tore me apart more to discover what a complete idiot he was. I suppose like Amelia in William Thackeray's novel "Vanity Fair" I found it hard to admit that I had given my heart to someone not worth it because to admit that would be to admit how foolish and stupid I myself had been. It is almost safer to go on believing than to face the truth that you had been so deceived :-(

 

I apogolize for the long ramble. Thanks again to everyone. d'arthez, your advice was especially helpful! It is such a struggle for me to understand why this has affected me for some reason and everyone's advice helps.

 

:-)

Thanks!

[bareman]

You can't change the man; we can only change ourselves. The only future you can have with him is one of abuse. Sooner or later a guy like that is going to step over the line and kill some woman. Don't let her be you. It has been proven that some people can be scared into clinging to a belief or a relationship. There's a famous case in which a murderer once convienced a woman that he had not killed her husband and had not raped her, but had instead saved her life. He did it by holding her captive, keeping her in constant fear and telling her over and over again that he had done nothing wrong. This guy you say you love has gotten inside your head. He has discovered your vulnerablity and used it. It might be to your advantage to learn what makes you dance to his tune. See a mental-health professional, because; even if you survive this maniac, you'll probably find another.