I always make a joke to my friends: “If you screw me over, I’ll write about you!” but I never thought it would be so bad that I would actually write about it. Now here I am.
The anger
When the relationship ended, we were on bad terms. As I’ve mentioned before, he had serious anger issues and he didn’t know how to handle conflict. At all.
His anger showed up about a month into the 3-month relationship. The road rage was the scariest. He would yell at just about everyone on the road. He would roll his window down so they could hear him. Most of the time they had their windows up, and he was just angry and wasting his energy on people who couldn’t even hear him.
I would usually have Cora in the car with me because I would stay at his house for a few nights in a row. I always felt so bad for having her in that environment. Now I feel bad we were both in that environment.
A time I remember specifically was when we went to get gas. A car with an older couple inside took his spot at the pump, probably unknowingly, and he lost it. He was SCREAMING at the couple and making hand gestures. I saw the look on the man’s face and I will never forget the horror it showed. I felt so terrible and guilty that I was included in the temper tantrum of a 26-year-old in the car. I was also terrified.
He would also get angry with me after fights and give me the silent treatment for hours on end. The environment in the house was hostile and I would sleep on the couch some nights because I couldn’t stand being in the same room as someone so childish.
The manipulation
He was extremely manipulative. A few weeks into the relationship he told me how confident he was that I was the one and that all he wanted in life was to get married and have a family. He then asked me to look at engagement rings and find which style I liked. I did it because I thought that he was being honest with me and that he loved me. Who would lie about that, right?
Turns out he would. I looked at rings until the point where they popped up as ads on my phone. He told me he wanted me to move in with him by Christmas, and I felt like I truly belonged somewhere and that I would finally be in a happy relationship.
Wrong again. A month later, without a mention of the rings or the moving in, I asked him what was going on. He then proceeded to insinuate that I was crazy for wanting either of those things to happen any time soon. Sorry, but I thought that because you mentioned it so quickly into the relationship?
He would act like I was crazy about a lot of things. If I brought up something he did or said that upset me, he would act as if he had never done or said that in his life. He gaslighted me constantly and made up lies to make him look like the good guy.
The fights
We had countless fights over small, stupid things. One night we had a fight, I can’t remember what about, but he was still angry and not speaking to me when we went to bed so I decided to move to the couch (which was disgusting by the way).
Around 2 am I got extremely dizzy and nauseous and felt like I was going to be sick. I stumbled my way to the bathroom holding onto the wall and walking slowly. I made it to the toilet and threw up, both cats in the bathroom with me. I proceeded to wake him up, it now being around 3 am. I woke him up because I felt extremely sick and wanted some comfort. You’d think that wouldn’t be a big deal right? Wrong.
He got upset with me for waking him up. I told him I did it because I wanted comfort and I wasn’t feeling well. He then made me feel guilty for even thinking about waking him up when he needed to be up for 9 am. I began crying and apologizing while he stayed angry with me. I asked to go home and he called me an Uber and I went home at 4 am with Cora. A few of our fights towards the end ended like this.
He ghosted me
After avoiding me for a full 20 days, he broke up with me the day after I got back from my trip to Philly. Over the phone. Yup. I went to get my stuff from his house and he couldn’t even face me. I never saw or heard from him again.
I was heartbroken, I won’t lie. I was so in love that I didn’t see all of the bad signs, even when my friends told me. I couldn’t see them until after the relationship ended. Unfortunately, that’s just how it works sometimes.
At first, I was a mess. I would call and text him just wanting to hear from him. I never got anything back, and I still haven’t. I don’t want anything back anymore. I want him to disappear from my memory just like he did my life. But it doesn’t work that way, sadly.
The aftermath
The relationship was so stressful and anxiety-inducing for 3 months that I lost about 5 lbs. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep without a sleeping pill. My energy was shot because I was so depressed. I ended up seeing a gastroenterologist and getting an endoscopy/colonoscopy done along with a gastric emptying study.
I got the results of both tests recently and it turns out it was all just stress. The stress of him and how he treated me on a daily basis caused me to lose weight and feel nauseous 24/7.
For a while, I was scared to leave the house. If I saw a white work truck, I would have a panic attack thinking it was him. Nightly panic attacks where my chest felt incredibly heavy were becoming a part of my life. I felt like a shell of who I was before everything happened, and it was honestly terrifying to experience.
The healing process
It took me a few months and a few (a lot) of therapy sessions to fully get over him. I also saw a Dr. Phil episode on ghosting that actually helped change my perspective a lot. What he said was “disinterest IS closure” and that really struck a chord with me.
It took a lot of panic attacks, crying, and complaining to friends about how much he missed me and how hurt I was to finally heal. I’m so thankful for my close friends who stuck with me while I went through my personal hell.
I’m now vowing to take care of myself first and never put anyone in front of me again. Maybe Cora. But she’s an exception. I’m also working on gaining my weight back and thinking about good positively instead of negatively like I had been doing for a while.
I’ve been journaling a lot and taking care of myself however I need, and it’s been lifting my moods a lot. I’m so thankful for therapy and for all of the work I’ve put in to better myself from what happened to me. It took some time and some of the lowest moods of my life, but I feel so happy and grateful that I made it through this, and you can too.
If you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship, please call The National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233.