Trigger warning: physical/emotional abuse
playlist
After ending a nearly two and half year relationship with my child's "father" (sperm donor), I have learned that abuse takes many forms and can often be so much more complex and nuanced than the narrative I grew up seeing. I thought domestic violence came in one form: the perpetrator, a man, has uncontrollable anger, comes home and towers over his partner, a woman, and- seemingly unprovoked, or perhaps provoked by something minute- transfers his anger into his fist and decorates his partner's face with a bruise or two that she hopes will fade and softly sink back into her once smooth skin before any friends or family notice.
This is surely one form of abuse, but it wasn't my experience.
My story is a lot more complicated but just as sad, painful, and traumatic. One of those experiences that cuts inside to your inner most core, scoops out that sacred part of you you thought was untouchable, and splatters your insides like paint across blank canvases in an empty, abandoned art gallery.
When I first met Richard (name changed), he was a tall, handsome, attentive neighbor who helped me move my couch. He was exceedingly polite to my parents. I wasn't interested at first but his persistence wore me down. On our first date I learned he had a 2 month old son and wanted five kids. I learned he and the child's mother had broken up while she was pregnant; he and his current girlfriend had just broken up but were still living together. He was still using her car but insisted he had moved on.
I noticed his anger very early on. I registered it as an anger I had never seen before and was alarming especially given the context; my dog had kept him up apparently and he became rather irate about it the next morning. (I even wrote a piece early on about my experience with him which you can check out here.)
He was fired from his job and we put things on hold for a week but kept talking. I went to Vegas for my 30th birthday a month after meeting him; he called me on my last day very early in the morning (my actual birthday) and informed me he had been abandoned in the cold on the side of the road in Athens by his friend and ex. They were apparently joking about sleeping together and he demanded they let him out- however was then upset they left him in the cold. It was confusing but he clearly was hurting and-here is one familiar trope that emerges in my story- I wanted to help him and nurture him and be the one he could rely on.
Later that day, he informed me his ex was going to go to the police to file a domestic violence report on him. He insisted she was the physical aggressor. I consoled him and even used my friend to reach out to her boyfriend for legal advice. This was the start of my thirties.
I flew back into Atlanta that night, drove all the way to Athens to pick him up, and brought him back to my apartment in Atlanta. He never left. He was afraid of running into his ex girlfriend and would hide from her when we were together, like literally ducking back into the apartment as we walked to the car. I couldn't believe my boyfriend was essentially avoiding being seen in public with me. This was similar to when I drove him to Athens every week to see his son but could only drop him off to avoid the child's mother seeing me.
However, both that ex-girlfriend and his son's mother tried to contact me numerous times about his anger and physical abuse. I believed him when he wrote them off. I believed him when he wrote his sister's same claims off. I disregarded his son's mother's claim that he essentially trapped women by impregnating them, even though I had already had an abortion early on at his request, and he had told me of at least two other women who he got pregnant that had miscarriages.
The first time things got physical, all I can remember is that he was taking acid and my head got knocked against the bed frame. I called my brother and his girlfriend but I was drunk and decided whatever happened in my blurry recollection was an accident. Still, my brother would not speak to Richard for months after, believing he was abusive. I desperately tried to convince him otherwise.
Emotional abuse soon became much more common. I've never been called "bitch" and "cunt" by a partner let alone as often as I was in our fights that continued to escalate. I am by no means a passive woman, and I always fought back. Yet Richard had a knack for emotional manipulation and gaslighting, and my brain soon grew so distorted I couldn't think clearly. He had an excuse for all the money issues. His anger was because I incited him. His emotional and verbal abuse created such confusion and he convinced me since I reciprocated we were both at fault. I believed that.
I believed that when I was being strangled on the bed while pregnant for the second time with his child it was my fault. For example, one time he grabbed my phone and in the culture of fear that "decorated the private hell we built" I fought back. Because he did not directly touch me, I was then positioned as the aggressor. To this day, he wears a bite mark I gave him as a badge of honor that I abused him. In reality, while I was pinned down pregnant on my bed biting him was the only way to release his incredibly strong grasp from my body. He was STRONG. Formally in the army and at 6'2 there was no possible way I could really inflict any physical harm on him. His strength was so superior and he knew that, but he said once he got into a certain mode it was a reflex for him to "fight back."
He didn't find it odd that this was a recurring pattern in all his relationships.
He financially abused me the entire course of our relationship. I worked multiple jobs and saved up enough money to cover me for maternity leave, since my freelance jobs offered me nothing. He was also not paying child support for his son. I remember one time on his son's first Christmas he remarked that he didn't need to buy him anything because it would just go to the mom.
He claimed he was an amazing father.
Once he stopped working and we moved for my job, I tore through my savings. I brought the baby to work with me every day. She just turned a year old and even though he lived with her for over half her life he has still never spent more than an hour alone with her. He did and does nothing to financially or physically help us. I grew more and more resentful and to cope I turned into a reflection of him. I became that angry, enraged partner- especially because while pregnant I was taken off my medication. He would complain if I asked him to do simple things like get me food; he always asked me to bring him food or just come visit him at work. He suffocated me and wanted to spend every day and night together and made me feel bad that I wanted space.
I picked him up and dropped him off from work. The few months he was working a good job I begged him to start saving up for when the court ordered him to pay child support for his son. He refused. I begged him to help me figure out what we would do for daycare but he insisted people would "help us" so there was nothing to worry about.
A few months into my new job and our relocation I broke. I was broken. I didn't even know who I was anymore. I was gaslighted over and over again and I continued to develop into my own monster. Once you have been degraded to the point of obliteration and you are constantly threatened and living in fear of someone else's anger, you are on the defense all the time. You start to believe all you have to protect yourself is to retaliate in a physical way, even thought you know it will end with you being hurt.
I finally found the strength to kick him out around November of 2017 after my savings were depleted, my daughter had been exposed to months of a horrible environment, and I completely hated him. Up until a few months ago, however, we were off and on; he lamented that I no longer loved him and treated him poorly; that I wasn't "ride or die" because I finally refused to put up with his shit. He begged to come home and I begged for us to take space to explore how we could repair ourselves. At this point I accept that I had become a person I never thought I'd become. I cannot fully victimize myself in this experience and openly admit that instead of completely cutting everything off, I continued in a miserable relationship because I thought this was what I deserved, I believed the reality he pushed that insisted he was doing the best he could and I was abusing him both emotionally and physically. If it weren't for my daughter, I would have never left.
Since things really ended, I tried many times to facilitate his seeing his daughter. He was rather evasive and would only allow me to bring her to his job for five-ten minutes at a time. I now know part of that reason was because he had already been seeing someone else and was hiding it from me. It was the exact same situation each girl before me had been in; I turned into an amalgamation of all the prior women he tore through. His son's mother's complaint that he moves from woman to woman, the multiple claims of physical and emotional abuse that I wrote off, the yelling I saw from his ex-girlfriend- I finally understood it all for what it really was. It wasn't everyone else; it was him. He was the only common link. He seeks out women that he can easily attach to and then slowly breaks them down while convincing you you are the problem.
I now know I was involved in a relationship with a narcissist. A recent article outlines some major characteristics of a narcissist:
1) "Lack of empathy and capacity for change"- he never cared of any pain I was in, particularly the pain he caused me. He still does not have a car, is struggling financially, hasn't paid taxes in years, has moved on to another new girl, and enjoys going out with friends while two women sacrifice everything to raise his children alone.
2) "Narcissists suffer what is known as a “narcissistic wound” in childhood. There is still no clinical verdict as to what causes their disorder, but there are some theories: one of which suggests that they may have suffered maltreatment by their parents and another that shows that being taught an excessive sense of entitlement at an early age can lead to narcissistic traits. As a result, a narcissist’s behavior is hardwired and very difficult to change in adulthood because they never outgrew their infantile sense of egocentrism." His father was abusive to his mother and sister and he grew up in quite the dysfunctional household. He hasn't spoken to his mother in over a year.
3."They create "harems" and love triangles"- So many love triangles. At this point I've essentially been involved with three with him.
4. "Their level of malice and sadism"- You can't physically abuse a pregnant woman and not be on some real sick shit. I really don't care what the circumstances are.
5. "The idealization, devaluation and discard cycle-Malignant narcissists idealize and love-bomb their victims deliberately to groom, manipulate, and control them." He was so persistent and so flattering he was hard to resist, especially when coupled with my life-long low self-esteem. "Once their victims are sufficiently hooked, they take great pride in devaluing their victims and mistreating them, subjecting them to put-downs, rage attacks, gaslighting, verbal, emotional, and sometimes even physical abuse. They also eventually discard their victims in horrific ways – that is, unless their victims discard them first, in which case, it becomes an elaborate power struggle to hoover them back in so they can devalue them further." He fought my leaving for months, and then when he finally realized he could never come back, he immediately latched on to another woman to make sure I knew how quickly he could discard me. While I was still dealing with my emotional wounds, he had already moved on. Even with all the pain he caused me, it was a devastating fact to learn. It confused me even more and it made me want to regain my power and that came in the form of trying to put the family back together even though I knew that was the exact opposite of what I wanted and needed.
I made a lot of mistakes with Richard. But my biggest mistake was letting him create an image of me that was untrue and harmful, and yet an image I eventually submitted to though the internalizing of his beliefs about me.
I was actually triggered to write this article after reading some posts from a friend about their abuse. It brought to mind how my experience was much different than other narratives and made me wonder how we can create a dialogue that makes room for everyone to actually be open, honest, and how to create a space for healing when things aren't so cut and dry. When each person has to go on living. How can you do that? What is fair?
I don't know anymore, but I know I am fighting the rage that has festered inside of me for so long because of this relationship. I know that abuse of any kind, from anyone is unacceptable. But I also know when someone shows you who they are, you better fucking believe them.
Abuse doesn't come in a one size fits all package, but the ramifications are deafening no matter what. It's still so hard for me to minimize my anger that has resulted from my experience. I take it out on other people now and I frequently feel out of control while I raise my daughter alone. It's still hard for me to understand what happened. It's still painful to look back at the abuse I endured and allowed, as well as the abuse I eventually inflicted. But I can talk about it and admit it, and I can now see things for what they really are and what they really were. I can thank my daughter for saving me from hell. And I know that the only way I can start healing is by being open and honest with what happened to myself first and then to others, because maybe someone will read this and it can somehow help.
If you are experiencing ANY form of abuse or are even unsure if you are being abused or in an abusive situation please reach out. I either reached out and redacted my statements or minimized/ avoided what was really going on because I was afraid of losing him. I implore you to get out of any situation that does not bring you joy. Here are some resources:
https://psychcentral.com/resources/Abuse/\
https://www.womenshealth.gov/relationships-and-safety/other-types/emotional-and-verbal-abuse
http://www.thehotline.org/is-this-abuse/
playlist
After ending a nearly two and half year relationship with my child's "father" (sperm donor), I have learned that abuse takes many forms and can often be so much more complex and nuanced than the narrative I grew up seeing. I thought domestic violence came in one form: the perpetrator, a man, has uncontrollable anger, comes home and towers over his partner, a woman, and- seemingly unprovoked, or perhaps provoked by something minute- transfers his anger into his fist and decorates his partner's face with a bruise or two that she hopes will fade and softly sink back into her once smooth skin before any friends or family notice.
This is surely one form of abuse, but it wasn't my experience.
My story is a lot more complicated but just as sad, painful, and traumatic. One of those experiences that cuts inside to your inner most core, scoops out that sacred part of you you thought was untouchable, and splatters your insides like paint across blank canvases in an empty, abandoned art gallery.
When I first met Richard (name changed), he was a tall, handsome, attentive neighbor who helped me move my couch. He was exceedingly polite to my parents. I wasn't interested at first but his persistence wore me down. On our first date I learned he had a 2 month old son and wanted five kids. I learned he and the child's mother had broken up while she was pregnant; he and his current girlfriend had just broken up but were still living together. He was still using her car but insisted he had moved on.
I noticed his anger very early on. I registered it as an anger I had never seen before and was alarming especially given the context; my dog had kept him up apparently and he became rather irate about it the next morning. (I even wrote a piece early on about my experience with him which you can check out here.)
He was fired from his job and we put things on hold for a week but kept talking. I went to Vegas for my 30th birthday a month after meeting him; he called me on my last day very early in the morning (my actual birthday) and informed me he had been abandoned in the cold on the side of the road in Athens by his friend and ex. They were apparently joking about sleeping together and he demanded they let him out- however was then upset they left him in the cold. It was confusing but he clearly was hurting and-here is one familiar trope that emerges in my story- I wanted to help him and nurture him and be the one he could rely on.
Later that day, he informed me his ex was going to go to the police to file a domestic violence report on him. He insisted she was the physical aggressor. I consoled him and even used my friend to reach out to her boyfriend for legal advice. This was the start of my thirties.
I flew back into Atlanta that night, drove all the way to Athens to pick him up, and brought him back to my apartment in Atlanta. He never left. He was afraid of running into his ex girlfriend and would hide from her when we were together, like literally ducking back into the apartment as we walked to the car. I couldn't believe my boyfriend was essentially avoiding being seen in public with me. This was similar to when I drove him to Athens every week to see his son but could only drop him off to avoid the child's mother seeing me.
However, both that ex-girlfriend and his son's mother tried to contact me numerous times about his anger and physical abuse. I believed him when he wrote them off. I believed him when he wrote his sister's same claims off. I disregarded his son's mother's claim that he essentially trapped women by impregnating them, even though I had already had an abortion early on at his request, and he had told me of at least two other women who he got pregnant that had miscarriages.
The first time things got physical, all I can remember is that he was taking acid and my head got knocked against the bed frame. I called my brother and his girlfriend but I was drunk and decided whatever happened in my blurry recollection was an accident. Still, my brother would not speak to Richard for months after, believing he was abusive. I desperately tried to convince him otherwise.
Emotional abuse soon became much more common. I've never been called "bitch" and "cunt" by a partner let alone as often as I was in our fights that continued to escalate. I am by no means a passive woman, and I always fought back. Yet Richard had a knack for emotional manipulation and gaslighting, and my brain soon grew so distorted I couldn't think clearly. He had an excuse for all the money issues. His anger was because I incited him. His emotional and verbal abuse created such confusion and he convinced me since I reciprocated we were both at fault. I believed that.
I believed that when I was being strangled on the bed while pregnant for the second time with his child it was my fault. For example, one time he grabbed my phone and in the culture of fear that "decorated the private hell we built" I fought back. Because he did not directly touch me, I was then positioned as the aggressor. To this day, he wears a bite mark I gave him as a badge of honor that I abused him. In reality, while I was pinned down pregnant on my bed biting him was the only way to release his incredibly strong grasp from my body. He was STRONG. Formally in the army and at 6'2 there was no possible way I could really inflict any physical harm on him. His strength was so superior and he knew that, but he said once he got into a certain mode it was a reflex for him to "fight back."
He didn't find it odd that this was a recurring pattern in all his relationships.
He financially abused me the entire course of our relationship. I worked multiple jobs and saved up enough money to cover me for maternity leave, since my freelance jobs offered me nothing. He was also not paying child support for his son. I remember one time on his son's first Christmas he remarked that he didn't need to buy him anything because it would just go to the mom.
He claimed he was an amazing father.
Once he stopped working and we moved for my job, I tore through my savings. I brought the baby to work with me every day. She just turned a year old and even though he lived with her for over half her life he has still never spent more than an hour alone with her. He did and does nothing to financially or physically help us. I grew more and more resentful and to cope I turned into a reflection of him. I became that angry, enraged partner- especially because while pregnant I was taken off my medication. He would complain if I asked him to do simple things like get me food; he always asked me to bring him food or just come visit him at work. He suffocated me and wanted to spend every day and night together and made me feel bad that I wanted space.
I picked him up and dropped him off from work. The few months he was working a good job I begged him to start saving up for when the court ordered him to pay child support for his son. He refused. I begged him to help me figure out what we would do for daycare but he insisted people would "help us" so there was nothing to worry about.
A few months into my new job and our relocation I broke. I was broken. I didn't even know who I was anymore. I was gaslighted over and over again and I continued to develop into my own monster. Once you have been degraded to the point of obliteration and you are constantly threatened and living in fear of someone else's anger, you are on the defense all the time. You start to believe all you have to protect yourself is to retaliate in a physical way, even thought you know it will end with you being hurt.
I finally found the strength to kick him out around November of 2017 after my savings were depleted, my daughter had been exposed to months of a horrible environment, and I completely hated him. Up until a few months ago, however, we were off and on; he lamented that I no longer loved him and treated him poorly; that I wasn't "ride or die" because I finally refused to put up with his shit. He begged to come home and I begged for us to take space to explore how we could repair ourselves. At this point I accept that I had become a person I never thought I'd become. I cannot fully victimize myself in this experience and openly admit that instead of completely cutting everything off, I continued in a miserable relationship because I thought this was what I deserved, I believed the reality he pushed that insisted he was doing the best he could and I was abusing him both emotionally and physically. If it weren't for my daughter, I would have never left.
Since things really ended, I tried many times to facilitate his seeing his daughter. He was rather evasive and would only allow me to bring her to his job for five-ten minutes at a time. I now know part of that reason was because he had already been seeing someone else and was hiding it from me. It was the exact same situation each girl before me had been in; I turned into an amalgamation of all the prior women he tore through. His son's mother's complaint that he moves from woman to woman, the multiple claims of physical and emotional abuse that I wrote off, the yelling I saw from his ex-girlfriend- I finally understood it all for what it really was. It wasn't everyone else; it was him. He was the only common link. He seeks out women that he can easily attach to and then slowly breaks them down while convincing you you are the problem.
I now know I was involved in a relationship with a narcissist. A recent article outlines some major characteristics of a narcissist:
1) "Lack of empathy and capacity for change"- he never cared of any pain I was in, particularly the pain he caused me. He still does not have a car, is struggling financially, hasn't paid taxes in years, has moved on to another new girl, and enjoys going out with friends while two women sacrifice everything to raise his children alone.
2) "Narcissists suffer what is known as a “narcissistic wound” in childhood. There is still no clinical verdict as to what causes their disorder, but there are some theories: one of which suggests that they may have suffered maltreatment by their parents and another that shows that being taught an excessive sense of entitlement at an early age can lead to narcissistic traits. As a result, a narcissist’s behavior is hardwired and very difficult to change in adulthood because they never outgrew their infantile sense of egocentrism." His father was abusive to his mother and sister and he grew up in quite the dysfunctional household. He hasn't spoken to his mother in over a year.
3."They create "harems" and love triangles"- So many love triangles. At this point I've essentially been involved with three with him.
4. "Their level of malice and sadism"- You can't physically abuse a pregnant woman and not be on some real sick shit. I really don't care what the circumstances are.
5. "The idealization, devaluation and discard cycle-Malignant narcissists idealize and love-bomb their victims deliberately to groom, manipulate, and control them." He was so persistent and so flattering he was hard to resist, especially when coupled with my life-long low self-esteem. "Once their victims are sufficiently hooked, they take great pride in devaluing their victims and mistreating them, subjecting them to put-downs, rage attacks, gaslighting, verbal, emotional, and sometimes even physical abuse. They also eventually discard their victims in horrific ways – that is, unless their victims discard them first, in which case, it becomes an elaborate power struggle to hoover them back in so they can devalue them further." He fought my leaving for months, and then when he finally realized he could never come back, he immediately latched on to another woman to make sure I knew how quickly he could discard me. While I was still dealing with my emotional wounds, he had already moved on. Even with all the pain he caused me, it was a devastating fact to learn. It confused me even more and it made me want to regain my power and that came in the form of trying to put the family back together even though I knew that was the exact opposite of what I wanted and needed.
I made a lot of mistakes with Richard. But my biggest mistake was letting him create an image of me that was untrue and harmful, and yet an image I eventually submitted to though the internalizing of his beliefs about me.
I was actually triggered to write this article after reading some posts from a friend about their abuse. It brought to mind how my experience was much different than other narratives and made me wonder how we can create a dialogue that makes room for everyone to actually be open, honest, and how to create a space for healing when things aren't so cut and dry. When each person has to go on living. How can you do that? What is fair?
I don't know anymore, but I know I am fighting the rage that has festered inside of me for so long because of this relationship. I know that abuse of any kind, from anyone is unacceptable. But I also know when someone shows you who they are, you better fucking believe them.
Abuse doesn't come in a one size fits all package, but the ramifications are deafening no matter what. It's still so hard for me to minimize my anger that has resulted from my experience. I take it out on other people now and I frequently feel out of control while I raise my daughter alone. It's still hard for me to understand what happened. It's still painful to look back at the abuse I endured and allowed, as well as the abuse I eventually inflicted. But I can talk about it and admit it, and I can now see things for what they really are and what they really were. I can thank my daughter for saving me from hell. And I know that the only way I can start healing is by being open and honest with what happened to myself first and then to others, because maybe someone will read this and it can somehow help.
If you are experiencing ANY form of abuse or are even unsure if you are being abused or in an abusive situation please reach out. I either reached out and redacted my statements or minimized/ avoided what was really going on because I was afraid of losing him. I implore you to get out of any situation that does not bring you joy. Here are some resources:
https://psychcentral.com/resources/Abuse/\
https://www.womenshealth.gov/relationships-and-safety/other-types/emotional-and-verbal-abuse
http://www.thehotline.org/is-this-abuse/
This is so truly powerful. Thank you for sharing this for women who have been abused and even for women who don’t realize they are in an abusive situation. Healing will come from surrounding yourself with positive vibrations including people, and environment. If you are religious prayer helps and if you are not (and even if you are) I would suggest mediation. I recently had some immediate positive impact from listening to a 7 chakras mediation. Just search on YouTube.
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