“It’s just a bruise, I’m anemic. It’s nothing.”
I said to myself as I left his apartment the next morning.
As i walked downtown in the freezing cold, wearing the clothes I had on from the night before and the beer-soaked hoodie I had found in a bush, I began to think. “That sex we had last night was really rough, I can’t honestly remember if I was okay with it or not.” Guilt and regret filled my mind as my face began to turn red unlocking the key to my room. I began to take my clothes off and get ready for a shower, but peering down at my arms and legs I noticed bruises on myself.
“Oh, I think I just fell off his bed or walked into a wall, I’m pretty clumsy so that wouldn’t be out of the ordinary.” Excuses are what I fed myself to avoid the reality of what was happening to me. I was dealing with a man with many problems whom I thought I could trust and believed to care about me.
No, we were not dating. But yes, we were friends. The college-culture had created the realm of “friends with benefits.” for us. Every weekend we’d spend together. Sipping on drinks and enjoying each other’s company, it was nice to have a warm body to cuddle with and a rock to vent to.
But slowly, I began notice a change. His “problems” didn’t really concern me until I realized that every time we talked or hung out, he would ALWAYS, without fail, be intoxicated. At first it didn’t bother me, because I was too naive to notice anything different from him. But as time went on and we began to mess around more often, the difference I saw began scare me.
He became aggressive. The way he looked at me, talked and acted made me uncomfortable. He would make gestures that would make me question staying the night at his place, but after a few drinks in me made me think otherwise as I went with the flow of conversation.
Some mornings, I would wake up and ask myself what happened as I would feel pain all through my body, like I was tossed around like a chew toy. I didn’t know how to react to what was happening to me so I brushed it off. I thought that a confident, strong-minded woman like myself could never get emotionally and physically abused. I let things continue because I thought it would change and that if I asked him to stop, it would. Little did I know that it would only make things worse.
Miserable, insecure and broken is what I had become and that had to change. Eventually him and I ended things through a series of tears, emotional text messages and return of my hair-dryer. Soon enough, I realized that the situation I was in was toxic, and that I deserved a human being who didn’t brush their problems on me. Fortunately with time I slowly began to live my life again without fear.
I never told my friends what was happening to me. It didn’t seem fair for them to know the dirty truth behind the guy I was seeing. I was in an abusive relationship and I didn't want my friends to see the vulnerable side of myself.
Abusive relationships happen more often than we think. Some people are better at hiding it than others for a variety of reasons but the reality of the issue is that it needs to stop. I never wish an abusive relationship on any person, and I am more than saddened to know that it happened to me- the friend who everyone admired because of her sassy and sarcastic self.
If you or somebody you know is struggling to find a way out an Abusive Relationship here is the number below for the National Hotline.
If you see something, say something.
"Have courage and be brave."
http://www.thehotline.org/is-this-abuse/
(1-800-799-7233)
