I've been having a lot of anxiety lately for various reasons. I live with my boyfriend in his parents' house. I used to have my own apartment but I moved here to save some money. It's been a year since I moved here. I don't like living here. I'm finally moving out in two weeks.
I had been planning this move months before. The plan was for my boyfriend and me to move in June to a city just 2 hours away. But last month he told me he wasn't ready. He said it was a big step for him. He was having anxiety over it. He's studying on his own so that he can get a job when we move. He said he wants to move. He said his plan is to be ready sometime in September. But I'm having a hard time trusting that since he flipped the script on my once already. I'm just ready to get out of this house. I'm moving in with a friend for a couple of months. If my bf is not ready to move in September, I don't know what I will do.
***Possible TW for emotional abuse***
I've been having flashbacks. I think I have them every day. Sometimes they are about my last relationship and my ex bf. Often they are about a series of events that happened last year. Sometimes they are about other past events from years ago.
I hadn't thought of it as PTSD. I still don't know for sure if I am "allowed" to call it a trauma. I know I can call it whatever it feels like to me, but compared to what some people have experienced it seems less severe. I go back and forth with blame. Mostly I blame myself, even though I know I'm not supposed to. Yet I can't help feeling that it was my fault. I let it happen. I pushed for it. I didn't stop it.
I have accepted that it was emotional abuse. It took me a while to realize it. I even thought that I had had control of the situation. Whenever things happen I always believe that I am in control. That I know what I'm doing. That I'm doing my best.
I have a really good memory. I remember words, events, phrases, how I was feeling, in great detail. It is difficult for me to purposefully forget something. I often thing about the past and all the things that happened to me, all the things I did. I used to believe that these past events made me stronger because I could grow from the hurt. Now I'm having trouble coming to terms with what happened.
Sometimes his image appears in my head. The memories flash. They are still so clear. I know the more I think about them the more warped they get and the harder it is to forget them.
I still feel bad about what happened. I still blame myself. I feel like I hate him but I'd rather feel nothing at all for him. He is not worth my hatred. I know I am just hurting myself.
Sometimes I lash out at people close to me. I am angry at my past. I cannot do anything to change the past, I know, but it is hard to cope with it. I take out my anger on other people who have nothing to do with what happened.
He was so twisted. His mind was sick. He was not healthy. I didn't understand. I thought I could help him. I wanted to be helpful. I thought I was doing something good. But he tricked me. I was the victim. He used me. And he blamed me for it.
I just realized that I've been internalizing something my abuser said to me.
He said "I mean I know you were desperate..."
I think he said that after he manipulated me into saying that I wanted to have babies with him.
I've thought about what he said, how I was "desperate", and I kind of accepted it about myself.
I thought, well I may have been desperate but he had no right to manipulate me like that.
But I internalized that I was desperate.
A therapist told me that it is perfectly normal to want to be loved and appreciated. It is part of what makes us human, after all.
All this time I had believed that what my abuser had said was true, that I had been desperate. I never questioned it.
Today I am taking back some more of my power by believing that he was wrong.
I was not desperate.
I was merely manipulated and made to think that I was.
Is online abuse even real?
I was manipulated and sexually abused through a phone.
Is that even possible?
Was it abuse?
Was it my fault?
I return to this question of Wasn't it my fault?
It all felt so wrong at the time, yet I didn't stop it. In fact I encouraged it. I kept it going. But why?
Maybe I was scared. I got used to the attention.
I feel so bad about it sometimes. Like what was I thinking? I was in control of my actions; I shouldn't have sent what I did.
And I wonder what's wrong with me?
Because it wasn't the first time something like that had happened.
Not the first time at all.
But it was the worst.
I wish I could speak out about it publically.
I wish I could let others know what kind of a person he really is.
I feel so much shame and guilt about it.
I feel like it was my fault.
Because I chose to do what I did.
How do I stop these feelings?
