You are not alone: Stand Up, Speak Out

Anonymous commenter Jane Doe opens up about relationship abuse. TRIGGER WARNING: contains references to domestic violence.

A few weeks ago, I got a message from my ex. He asked how I’d been doing, recommended some music to me and generally sounded very friendly. After I read it, I felt sick. I began to hyperventilate and my hands couldn’t stop shaking; it was a long time before I calmed down. Like many other women, I am a survivor of relationship abuse, and this message brought back memories of the fear that I had experienced for years.

I am a survivor of emotional abuse. It started when I was a teenager and lasted for several years. At the time, I didn’t even realise the behaviour I was being subjected to was abusive. It never escalated into physical violence, and so I never thought that I was being abused.

Most of the time, my ex was a funny and charming partner, but as the years wore on I began to see a side of him that still scares me. I was told how to act, how to dress, even how to stand, and that if I changed my appearance in any way that he didn’t approve of, I would be ignoring his wishes and doing it to spite him.

I was told that my taste in books, films and music was inferior to his and that I had to stop reading, watching and listening to the things I enjoyed. I was told that I wasn’t funny, that I wasn’t confident, that it was degrading for me to buy him a ticket at the cinema. He isolated me from my friends and family, would insult them to my face and become furiously angry when I asked him to stop.

He was racist, sexist, homophobic and ableist and would call my friends and relatives names like ‘cripple’ and ‘bitch’; when I told him that he was upsetting me he would accuse me of censoring him and refuse to stop.

His temper was vicious and unpredictable; the smallest thing could set him off. In his anger he’d smash things up or work on the punchbag, and after he was finished he would always make sure that I knew exactly what he’d done and what had made him angry.

He never turned his temper on me, but I was always aware of it. The threat of what he might do if I pushed him far enough still scares me, which is why I have chosen to remain anonymous.

His temper was vicious and unpredictable; the smallest thing could set him off.

In the end, it just became easier to smile and nod until he ran out of steam on his own. Even though the things he said hurt me deeply, I would pretend I hadn’t heard them. I’d remember the things that made him angry and make sure I didn’t bring them up again. I stopped seeing my friends and didn’t speak about them and I changed the way I acted, dressed and looked to avoid getting into another argument. I told myself that if I loved him, I’d accept him, even the sides of him that scared me.

I believed that his temper was something that he would grow out of. I thought that if I just did as he said for long enough, he would realise how much I loved him and change on his own. I made myself into the person he wanted, but that person was never really me. In that relationship, I forgot who I was.

It has taken years for me to realise that his behaviour was unacceptable, and that there are some parts of people that you just cannot accept. After we broke up, I went into relationships expecting to be abused. I believed that kind of behaviour was normal, even expected, and it was only another ex’s shock when he heard my story that made me realise that something had been deeply wrong.

It’s very difficult for me to trust people now. Whenever I meet new people I assess them as a potential threat in a process that’s faster than blinking and so deeply ingrained that I can’t stop. I try to keep myself open to new relationships but there’s a constant fear that it will all just happen again. Still worse is the voice in my head that tells me that it was normal, that I’m overreacting, that the years of pain and fear were all just something I dreamed up, or that the way he treated me was the kind of treatment I deserve.

There’s a particularly poisonous argument that abuse only ‘counts’ when it is physical, and if you don’t have the bruises then you aren’t in need of help. This could not be further from the truth. Any form of abuse is unacceptable.

No-one has the right to control how you look, who you see and the opinions you are allowed to voice. This behaviour is abusive and should not be tolerated from anyone, no matter how sorry they are once their temper has faded.

There are no excuses.