I was bullied and suffered emotional abuse in a relationship for over seven years and it was only in the final year – when I began to untangle a brand new web of lies about him – that I REALLY started to understand what he had been doing to me and the damage it had caused.
I had put my decrease in confidence, increase in anxiety and a brand new diagnosis of depression, down to me simply getting older and making poor life choices. And, yes, those were BIG contributors, but it wasn’t till everything crumbled apart for the final time that I realised that my ex had been hacking away at my mental health for a long, long, long time, yet quickly disguising it as love.
We met at 25, fell in-love and traveled the world on a crazy adventure. By the time we were 30 we were engaged to be married, shacked up in our own little studio apartment in London, spending our weeks supporting each other through demanding jobs, and our weekends cooking together, socialising or just Netflix and chillin. Sounds lovely, right?
But despite how that looks on paper, throughout those five years there were issues, lies and arguments that never sat well with me and I often found myself wondering if other couples argued the way we did. Was it normal? Because it didn’t feel it. Yes everyone argues, but I felt like ours would leave me emotionally scarred. I felt scared of him. By our fifth year together I felt a shadow of the girl I used to be. I became scared to argue or fight back, and so often I wouldn’t. Cue the beginning of my life as a doormat.
Around 2015 I found myself Googling ‘what are signs of abuse’ and was horrified when I realised I could match up these traits with a lot of his behavior. But of course then he did something kind & romantic and I found myself thinking ‘of course he’s not an abuser, an abuser wouldn’t make such a beautiful gesture’.
FYI, emotional abusers are not people who walk around being a bully 100% of the time. Yes they can be mean AF and manipulating. But they can also be loving, romantic, sweet and (at least appear) trustworthy. They throw in positive reinforcement to confuse you from thinking badly of them.
I realised if I had listened to my gut back in 2015 after I did that Google search, I could have saved myself another four years of him bullying me. So if you have found this blog post via a Google search, please, please, please listen to your gut. Here are five key signs of emotional abuse…
1. Name-calling & put-downs
It seems like such a pathetic one to write, people call each other names, people tease, I get it. But if someone you love is consistently calling you names or putting you down, this is a form of emotional abuse. Especially if you complain about it and they then say “oh it was only a joke” or try and invalidate your feelings by telling you that how you feel “is wrong.” Do not accept this in any kind of relationship.
2. Character Assassination
To assassinate someone’s character means ‘to slander a person with the intention of destroying their public confidence or reputation.’ Similar to name-calling, this can be through snide comments that they pass of as jokes, but that in fact are seeds being planted in your head and over time you start believing them. My ex was always telling me I was spoilt and selfish, over and over again, to the point I began to believe him and became super paranoid that that’s what everyone else thought of me too. Soon, I began to believe it myself and began to feel like absolute crap for being such a selfish person.
(Side note: I am not a selfish person. I truly know and understand this now)
3. Manipulation
Manipulators use charm and persuasion to get what they want and to trick you into buying their bullshit. They tend to do this well because manipulators (which I’ve learnt are also called human predators) lack empathy. Yes, they can be fun and can even be very generous with money or materialistic things, but they lack the ability to care about how their actions affect other people. And the worst part of being manipulated in a relationship or friendship is that you have no idea it is happening because often you trust this person implicitly.
4. Unpredictable behaviour
This can include chaotic mood swings that leave you walking around on egg-shells because you just don’t know what kind of behavior they’re going to exhibit. Something that once made them angry, could the next week not bother them, and vice versa. They can have random outburst of emotion, such as anger, then later that day, be acting completely normal again.
Abandonment is another sign. Quite often my ex would just walk out and leave not just me but his friends too. They called it a ‘Houdini’. I’ve been left in a restaurant to foot the bill and at a nightclub with no way of getting home because of this completely unpredictable behaviour.
5. Gaslighting, lying & emotional blackmail
“You’re imagining it / It’s in your head / You’re super paranoid / Have you heard what you’re saying / You’ve gone crazy” are just some of the comments I got when I accused my ex of lying or cheating. He was a massive flirt and every time I brought this up or was suspicious, he would deflect it all back onto me with concerns for my mental well being. Of course, years later I discovered I was right all along. My Ex had cheated. He knew full well that I was right and yet was happy to lie to my face, making me feel like I was going crazy. Gaslighters are very very dangerous for one’s mental health
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For anyone out there who thinks they me a victim of abuse, here are some professional organisations that you can reach out to:
- Women’s Aid – 0808 2000 247 – FREE 24/7 helpline (UK)
- For young people dealing with emotional – the young person’s runaway help line – 116 000 (UK)
- Free 24hr NHS Domestic abuse helpline – 0808 2000 247 (UK)
If you have experienced anything similar to the above or are going through a painful heartbreak, I believe you can get through this.
If you are at a point where you’re ready to move forward with your life and set goals for a brand new future, let’s see if we can work together…