I was in high school. All bright and bushy eyed. I thought that I could take on anything that was thrown at me. I was ready to succeed, and I was ready for happiness. 

As a senior in high school, I hadn't been in much of a relationship before and if I was being honest, I was kind of terrified of them. I had seen my brother go through his own share of bad relationships, and I didn't see much hope in finding something good for myself. So, I didn't look. But when one fell into my lap, I didn't turn it away. I had always been shy in high school, I didn't have many friends and I didn't talk much. Meeting someone who seemed to actually care about me was exciting, I had someone to confide in, someone that would always be there for me. 

He was an older guy, had graduated high school two years ago and was living in his friends spare bedroom. At first he treated me with respect and was always nice to me. I didn't see anything wrong with him. Though I was seventeen and I had never been in love before. I didn't know what I was getting myself into. 

For awhile, I was happy. Though it wasn't long before the relationship began to chip away at me. Hanging out turned into me waiting in his room for hours while he hung out with his friends. Hanging out turned into me sitting in the corner of his room while he yelled at video games. Hanging out turned into me dodging things that he threw when he got too angry. 

It was the little things, that could have seemed like a joke if you didn't know what was going on. Him threatening to kill someone at burger king because his order was messed up. Him yelling at me on the way home from burger king because for some reason, that was my fault too. Going out in public became me telling him to calm down, became me walking away from him while he yelled at me in the shaving isle. (I told him his razors at home were 4 blade, and he told me they were 3. Me telling him he was wrong was enough to get him going, he yelled with other people around. They all looked at me.) 

I didn't realize anything was wrong. It takes looking back on situations to realize now that his anger was not my fault. 

I will always remember the day that I realized it was more than just a bad temper. 

I had been working at a new job for a few weeks and I had made some friends. One night after work we all decided to hang out together. We were going to have a sleepover at one of the girls' houses. I told my boyfriend about this and immediately he told me that I "wasn't allowed to do that" and that he thought it was a bad idea. He told me I was stupid and that I trusted people too easily. He told me that if I didn't come home he was going to break up with me. I stopped responding for the night and put my phone on silent. 

I didn't end up spending the night, and didn't check my phone until I got home around three in the morning. We didn't live together, so I returned home to my mom's house. I didn't want to see him. I was sitting in bed, about to go to sleep when I saw the message I had missed from him. 

"I hope you're the one who finds me."

This message immediately switched on panic mode. I texted his best friend, asking if he would keep a watch on my boyfriend. He agreed. I talked to my mom, and she explained to me that I shouldn't be with someone as toxic as he was. 

I remember sitting in my room, crying, texting him frantically in hopes that he would respond. I spent the night worried sick about him. 

The next day he yelled at me, saying that I never should have involved his friend in his business. We dated for almost a year after this. When I finally got up the courage to break up with him, he spent the following months sending me pictures and telling me that he was going to kill himself. He sent me a picture of him sitting on the ledge of a building. He told me he was going to jump. 

For those of you who are interested, he didn't kill himself.  

Two years have passed now and I still think about our relationship all the time. It affects me every day. I find it hard to share this story with people. My sister would always say, "If it was so bad, why didn't you just leave?" and that's the thing about emotional abuse, no one views it as a problem. It's not taken seriously as a problem. After all, they're just words, and it's not like he ever hit you, right? 

It wasn't that he never hit me. It's that he looked me in the eyes and said, "If I weren't such a nice person, I'd hit you right now." It's that he wanted to hit me, he found ways to abuse me without using his fists. 

Facing the real world after an abusive relationship is hard. It's hard to trust people, and everything around you can be triggering. Emotional abuse is a problem, and if you're in a toxic relationship, do your best to get out of it. I wrote this so that hopefully people would have something to relate to. If you are or have been in an emotionally abusive relationship, your pain is valid. Abuse doesn't have to be physical to be real.