My Domestic Violence Story 1

In light of the Johnny Depp vs Amber Heard trial, I wanted to highlight something that is very frustrating to me. I want to warn that this may be triggering to those who have experienced domestic violence in any capacity.

Growing up, when I heard about domestic violence, that meant physical abuse. That was all. I had heard bits and pieces of emotional, and psychological abuse but that was never necessarily associated with domestic violence. Then I became a victim of domestic violence, and I didn’t even know it. Not until months after. No, I wasn’t hit. I wasn’t beaten, I didn’t have things thrown at me, but I was a victim of domestic violence.

For three and a half years, from July 2016 to April of 2020, I was in a horrific relationship. It was so incredibly toxic and I didn’t even realize it until the very end. I didn’t know that the controlling behaviors, the love bombing, the gaslighting, the manipulation, the constant surveillance, that was all domestic violence. Don’t get me wrong, there were times I was absolutely terrified of him, but I loved him, and he never hit me. I thought I was fine.

When we started dating, I thought he was perfect. He wanted to make sure I felt I wasn’t getting ignored, he wanted me to go out with my mom, he wanted me to be happy. He would do anything possible to make sure I was happy. We moved in together very quickly. It shifted so slowly, as it always does, that I didn’t even notice. It started with him wanting me to skip dinners or seeing my mom or family once in a while to spend time with him. He just wanted some alone time, and I could always reschedule with my family. Eventually, it was more often that he wanted me to stay home. At the time, I just thought, “this is so sweet, he wants to spend time with me”. I didn’t realize this was step one to isolating me.

During the beginning of our relationship I was on a terrible schedule. I was switching between graveyard shifts (typically 1:00-9:30 am or some variation in that area), and normal daytime shifts (typically either 11-7:30 or 10-6:30). I also have chronic fatigue, which was diagnosed at the time, and fibromyalgia, which was diagnosed towards the end of our relationship. During this period in time, he didn’t mind that I was sleeping as much as I could. He would only wake me up if he needed me, and I was trying my hardest to be awake when he was home.

We were in a honeymoon phase, and I was essentially getting love bombed. I would get compliments, I could do as I wished, I was on cloud 9 with him. As I said, it all slowly started changing. I don’t remember much about the transition phase, I don’t have a great memory now due to the trauma. I just remember it slowly shifting to him not wanting me to see my mom or my family. He wanted me with him at all times. He wanted to know where I was at all times. He wanted my location on his phone. He wanted me to dress a certain way, he wanted my hair a certain way. He didn’t want me to wear makeup.

I don’t remember when it started, but I eventually saw his anger. I don’t remember how it started, if it was small or explosive from the beginning. I just remember the anger. I believe it started when we got a gaming console. I don’t remember him getting angry when he would game on his computer, but I also associate that with the beginning of our relationship when he was so kind and attentive. All I remember now is a slideshow of sorts in my head of him throwing things, hitting things, and the damage that all left behind.

I would have full on anxiety attacks just because he was gaming. His anger was out of control. He would throw his controllers, throw remotes, punch things, even after I told him to take a break. I would tell him to cool down because this was making me so anxious and scaring me. He told me no. He had tried before and it didn’t work. I always told him to please try again, try new ways to calm down, and do anything to stop the rage. He again said no. Throughout our relationship I asked him to get anger management, he told me no he didn’t have a problem. Or that he had done it before and it didn’t help. However, I needed therapy at least twice a week because I was broken, damaged goods. I needed help so badly because “as soon as your brain is fixed you’ll be perfect”.

This man tracked my location, and that still wasn’t enough. I would be going to the store and take a different way home and I would get a phone call or a text asking me why I was taking that way home. Same thing when I was picking up food. I love Pokemon Go, and if I stopped at a gym or a stop then I was berated when I got home because I “didn’t want to spend time” with him. I would usually only take an extra 2-5 minutes, but that still was time I should’ve been spending with him. This started real arguments. Including a time I stopped at a local park that had a Pokemon Gym, after being done delivering UberEATS. He was convinced I was cheating on him. I literally had to pull up my app and show him the journal in it to prove that I was just there to play Pokemon Go and hadn’t even left my car. After about 30 minutes, he finally believed me.

I also remember an instance where I went to my mom’s apartment. I wanted to drink wine with her, and I couldn’t tell him that because he didn’t want me drinking because he didn’t want to drink anymore due to an incident I will describe later. I ended up taking a nap at her house because drinking makes me tired and I wanted to be safe driving home. He would not stop calling me. I texted him and told him to stop calling. I was fine, which only pissed him off more. He had my location so I just went back to sleep. I got home and he was yelling at me. It was my fault he was upset. “I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD AND YOU TOLD ME TO STOP CALLING YOU?!” I told him he had my location. I was clearly at my mom’s and I was sleeping, there was literally no reason for him to be mad at me. He had broken his nightstand. We had those 3 cube organizers as nightstands and he had gotten so mad at me that he slammed his fist down on one of the shelves and broke it. He explained that he thought I had been kidnapped because I wasn’t texting him back. It made absolutely no sense to me. But again, I didn’t think anything of it. It wasn’t domestic violence.

He would want me to do everything for him, cook for him, clean the apartment, do laundry, and do the grocery shopping. He would literally pout when I told him I was tired and he could cook for himself until I just did it for him. Even though I did pretty much everything for him, he would tell me he was the one that did everything in the relationship and I did nothing. I had to support him when he would continuously quit jobs because he didn’t like it or it was “unfair”. He got unemployment and lied about applying for jobs to unemployment, but I had to support him or else it was “you never take my side”. I couldn’t disagree with him in front of anyone or else I was told later that I never took his side, I never supported him. If he didn’t want to drink alcohol, soda, energy drinks, or do anything, I couldn’t do it either. No conversation, I just wasn’t allowed to do it.

An incident I referenced earlier happened after he had taken some of my sleeping pills. I was on Trazodone for insomnia. Prior to this, my ex-boyfriend had a habit of taking unisom and drinking a glass or two of wine before bed to help him sleep. I believe he was either out of one of those products or he just wanted to try my medication, and he woke me up having a full blown panic attack. I don’t remember what time it was, or what was going on in our lives at the time but his mother and I took him to the emergency room, and got him checked out and he was fine. After that, no more medication, no more alcohol, no more weed, no more energy drinks, no more caffeine. For both of us.

At this time, I had chronic migraines that usually required an emergency room visit because I couldn’t manage them on my own. The pain was so severe, it was blinding. The occasion I remember the most was when I had a migraine, I think it was either 11:30 pm or 1:30 am, I honestly don’t remember the time. I’m fairly sure I woke him up and he told me he absolutely would not take me. It was too late, he had work the next morning and he wasn’t going to spend time in the ER. He told me to try and sleep it off. I told him it’s to the point where I cannot sleep it off because the pain was so severe. He again told me he wasn’t going to take me. We had a white noise machine in the bedroom and the noise made the pain debilitating. I went out to the living room to try and get in contact with anyone in my family to take me to the ER and try to sleep. He came storming out of the bedroom asking me what the hell I was doing. I told him I couldn’t sleep in the bedroom because of the white noise machine, and I was trying to get someone to come and get me since he wouldn’t take me to the ER and I wasn’t allowed to drive on my own due to the medication I was usually given at the ER, and I wouldn’t have been able to focus on the road due to the pain in my head. He yelled at me that he would take me if I was going to make a big deal about it. I told him I didn’t want him to take me if he was going to be pissed off about it, and he essentially told me to shut up and that he was taking me. I hated it when he took me when he was irritated by it because he would just complain the entire time that we were there and it was my fault. It was as if I wanted to go to the ER and this was a good time for me.

I have many more instances, and I may use this as a diary of sorts to not only vent about these situations, but also to raise awareness that domestic violence isn’t just physical. It can definitely be emotional, and psychological. I was scared daily in this relationship. I was controlled, I was made to believe that I was nothing, I was broken. I was made to believe that I was damaged goods and nobody else would love me. It’s taken me years to reverse that thinking. I have mild PTSD from this relationship. It has greatly affected my current relationship but thankfully I have such a kind and understanding partner now. He has supported me and guided me through relearning how to function in a healthy relationship.

Domestic violence isn’t just physical, and you can escape it.