- This topic has 6 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 1 year, 8 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
-
We have been in an on/off relationship since 2020. For (removed by moderator) months we didn’t talk, he completely blocked me. I lost weight, I couldn’t sleep without medication and I never felt happy. Not even when I was with friends and family I couldn’t shake the black cloud.
We got back into contact and tried a relationship again… It didn’t work and now we’re on/off talking. At the moment we’re not talking. He is ignoring all my attempts to contact him.
The abuse he has put me through is horrendous and I’m having therapy because of it. I have been punched, kicked, strangled until I pass out, thrown around the room, hair pulled so much I lost some of it, bruised, battered and even arrested. He once had his knees on my shoulders, with me lying on the floor just slapping me over and over and over. He then taunted me that he (removed by moderator) And did the same.
He has threatened to kill me on multiple occasions. One time after a long beating session, he dragged me over to the knife draw and I thought that was it. Instead he got out scissors and cut my hair.
The ghosting, gas lighting, and emotional abuse is more than the physical, that gives you an indication. I am always accused of cheating (never have). He makes himself part of my life and knows my friends and family (who all hate him and they don’t even know about the extent of the abuse), but yet I’ve hardly met any of his friends (he doesn’t have many) and met his family once. He’ll go on family days out and never invite me, but he is always included in my plans.
He’ll ghost me for days, writing cryptic messages, not telling me where he is and who he is with. This drives me actually insane. I feel like a woman possessed.
I’ve had (removed by moderator) abortions from him, the first one he accused me of cheating and it not being his. (Detail removed by moderator), but didn’t support me emotionally. (Removed by moderator). He didn’t end up coming. I called him hysterical and he said he was busy and couldn’t talk, and I should speak to someone else.
I tried to come to peace with what I was doing and what I was going through, and turned my phone off for the night. The next morning he accuses me of playing game, and accused me of going to meet another man, when I was still bleeding my pregnancy out.
The awful thing is I am only happy when I’m with him. When we’re together. Even though when we’re together it isn’t always nice. He isn’t even Jekyll and Hyde, but there are such loving times. When he ghosts or ignores me I miss him so much. He is all I can think about, morning, noon and night. I go to sleep thinking about him, and I wake up thinking about him. Whatever I am doing and no matter how pleasant it is, if he isn’t there there’s always a black cloud. I have to take sleeping medication otherwise I can’t sleep. I can’t hardly eat. I get pleasure out of nothing unless I’m with him. When we split up the first time I was still feeling like this (removed by moderator) months on. I was still crying.
I do not depend on him financially and we do not live together. There is nothing keeping me to him. Yet I only want him.
Please tell me this will end one day?
Are there others in the same situation? How do you cope?Even writing this has helped, so thank you.
-
okay so ive been here exactly the same feeling. in essence you are describing traumatic bonding. we feel like this is the same as love but its an even stronger feeling than this. its like craving something abit like a highly addictive substance without it we cant function. Does this ring true? if you look up traumatic bonding it will fully explain what has happened inside your brain. its basically grooming/ conditioning. the only way to get through this is to treat it like addiction. stay away from him see your feelings through although this is really hard. no contact is essential. when you come out of the other side of this youll realise how much danger you are actually in xx
luv diymum
-
Trauma bonds (also referred to as traumatic bonds) are emotional bonds with an individual (and sometimes, with a group) that arise from a recurring, cyclical pattern of abuse perpetuated by intermittent reinforcement through rewards and punishments.[1][2][3] The process of forming trauma bonds is referred to as trauma bonding or traumatic bonding. A trauma bond usually involves a victim and a perpetrator in a uni-directional relationship wherein the victim forms an emotional bond with the perpetrator.[4] This can also be conceptualized as a dominated-dominator or an abused-abuser dynamic. Two main factors are involved in the establishment of a trauma bond: a power imbalance and intermittent reinforcement of good and bad treatment, or reward and punishment.[1][4][5] Trauma bonding can occur in the realms of romantic relationships, parent-child relationships, incestuous relationships, cults, hostage situations, sex trafficking (especially that of minors), or tours of duty among military personnel.[1][6]
Trauma bonds are based on terror, domination, and unpredictability. As a trauma bond between an abuser and a victim strengthens and deepens, it leads to conflicting feelings of alarm, numbness, and grief, that show up in a cyclical pattern. More often than not, victims in trauma bonds do not have agency and autonomy, and don’t have an individual sense of self either. Their self-image is a derivative and an internalization of the abuser’s conceptualization of them.[7]
Trauma bonds have severe detrimental effects on the victim not only while the relationship persists, but beyond that as well. Some long-term impacts of trauma bonding include but are not limited to remaining in abusive relationships, having adverse mental health outcomes like low self-esteem, negative self image, and increased likelihood of depression and bipolar disorder, and perpetuating a generational cycle of abuse.[4][5][8][9] Victims who traumatically bond with their victimizers are often unable to leave these relationships or are only able to do so with significant duress and difficulty. Even among those who do manage to leave, many go back to the abusive relationship due to the pervasiveness of the learned trauma bond.[
-
Hello lovely. You don’t need me to tell you how horrific this is. It’s truly terrifying. I think you’re addicted to this man, hoping perhaps he will change? But you deserve so much more than this. I know it’s super hard to take off the glasses but this isn’t what life is supposed to be about.
I really struggled coming to terms with not being with my ex and I still feel, at times, empty without him. Despite everything. But you’ve got to want more for yourself and from life. It’s such a cruel thing to happen and a twisted way of our brains developing this addiction to an unhealthy cycle. It doesn’t make sense, does it?
It’s been a while since I’ve been out, I also started dating my ex at the same time as you, and whilst it’s been hard, I think about the times I’ve been put in dangerous situations, or driven to the point of sobbing into the carpet on a daily basis, literally wasting away lying in bed, depressed. I experienced emotional/psychological and verbal abuse, nothing physical, but the threats of being driven into walls / being told I’d be to blame if he killed himself and hanging up not knowing where he was or if he was ok, and smashing things was enough to cause distress. I cannot imagine enduring this alongside physical abuse as well.
You need time for you, to heal. To break the addiction. It’s b****y hard, but it’s doable. It can be done. It does get easier, but in an almost exponential way. Sometimes it feels like it’s getting worse, only for it then to get better later. And so on.
My advice to you is to seek some therapy. Not CBT, actual face to face counselling. This helped me enormously. Speak to your GP and ask for recommendations, put yourself on waiting lists in the meantime. Or ask at work if they have any schemes in place.
I’d also recommend writing things down, here or elsewhere, just to get it out your system. The first few months for me were the hardest so it really helps having an output.
Grieve as much as you need to, and look for small wins in every day. Some days will feel impossible, other days you will have a bit more energy. Utilise that time when you feel able to, as I found doing things, even housework, really helped my mentality.
Watch films and tv programmes that will uplift you and give you a distraction, even if you don’t feel like doing. I’ve found I’m actually more positive the next day if I’ve watched something good on Netflix the night/day before.
Read articles online, recognise what you’re going through and why it’s unacceptable. Know that you are not alone.
Finally please do seek advice from your GP, from womensaid and whatever other support networks you can access. Utilise all the resources available, if you can. And just know this isn’t an overnight fix, but you deserve so so much more.
Please don’t go back (I know easier said than done) and keep yourself safe 💕 x
-
Hello moonlightson,
@diymum has given you great insight here to what is happening – this is not love that you feel for this man. He has terrorised you, terrified you, degraded you, humiliated you, assaulted you and many other things. He has stolen every bit of your self worth, self esteem, independence, confidence and respect for yourself so that you feel he is the only person in your life worth having. He keeps you wanting him by maybe throwing you a small crumb of kindness every once in a while, but this will be fake kindness in order to keep you trapped. He is very dangerous. Strangling you to the point of unconsciousness is a huge concern, and he threatens to kill you too. He is showing how powerful he is to you – how your life is literally in his hands and he could actually kill you whenever he chooses to. Please do not underestimate the danger you are in with this man.
The strangling is now an offence in its own right. An offence of Non Fatal Strangulation became a new and separate offence in June this year and any person who is strangled, suffocated or choked is a victim of this, even if there are no visible injuries. This is serious and is a standalone offence and is a higher level offence than one of common assault.
The sad thing is that the longer you remain in this cycle of believing this is love and the longer that you believe he is the man for you the longer you will suffer, and likely become a statistic of murder. I have worked with many victims of abuse and what you describe is up there with the level of some of my victims who have been murdered, so please take this seriously and do not think it won’t happen to you. I really hope this paragraph is not removed by moderators because they fear this may scare you, the reality is you should be scared of this man.
Please do not be put off going to the police because they have arrested you in the past. Many women are arrested because the perpetrator turns the tables on them. In many cases, women who are strangled by a man who is calm and controlled during the process have no injuries to their neck but will lash out and scratch or bite him because she is fighting for her life. The perp then calmly tells the police “look how she’s attacked me, she’s mental, this is what I have to put up with.” It’s all a part of their control plan. If he can isolate you from any source of help by making you afraid of turning to anyone then he can do more of what he wants. A big part of their power game is a way of showing you that the police are on their side and that the police won’t help you or believe you. I wouldn’t be surprised if he said things along the lines of “Go on call the police, remember what happened last time?” and he’ll use this to taunt you.
You will not be able to escape a man who uses this level of violence and control without professional help, he will not leave you alone. He will ignore you now to break you right down, and then when he knows you are totally broken he will come back and destroy you some more. Even if he was to find out you didn’t want him and were moving on in life, he would still come back to destroy any chance of happiness you might find.
This will end for you one day but not without a lot of hard work from yourself too. You will need to tell professionals what is happening, you will probably need to tell the police about your abuse history so that they can arrest him and remand him (hopefully). You need protection measures, he’s not going to stay away from you without them.
No one can rescue you from this awful situation, we can only throw you the lifelines to help you rescue yourself. That desire to save yourself really has to come from within you.
Please fight for yourself and seek the right help to get him out of your life. This won’t be easy, but I believe if don’t you could end up being killed by him.
-
Can you maybe go stay with someone yu trust for a few months. someone who you feel will be there for you through this initial tough period? i can promise you this bond does eventually dissolve. it did for me and i felt exactly as you describe needed him to appease my anxiety when i was participating in anything in my life. its an insane trick of nature (a trauma bond) very real but we often go through denial first it can take a real jolt to get us out of this mind set but mean while your putting your safety at stake.
life is so presious
love diymum
-
Wow… Thank you all so much. I have looked up a trauma bond in the past but I will revisit it.
He says that every time he looks at me (removed by moderator). Apparently he has only ever slapped one other woman. But I see the way he treats women. He had a lot of casual sex (before I met him) and kept women hanging on his every word and wanting more, when he would just pick them up and put them down whenever he wanted.
I also told myself I wouldn’t be one of these. But I have turned into them. If he called me now to meet up I’d run straight back into his arms. I feel helpless. I just want him back and this feeling to go away. I haven’t seen him for over two weeks and I miss him terribly. Nothing in my life seems worth it unless he is there. Even though I have great friends and family, a job I enjoy and great colleagues. I feel right now that I’d give it all up for him. I feel like a fool 🙁
-
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
