The cycle of abuse

When I was 16 years old, I changed schools because of bullying and I started a relationship with the most popular guy at my new school. He was strong and no one dare say a word against me while we were together. The first year or so was amazing, though looking back maybe it wasn't, there were a lot of cheating rumors but I ignored those. As school was ending he would break up with me and leave me devastated, telling me he never loved me that I was a loser. My first experience of emotional abuse. He would then "take me back" and so the cycle began. On one of the occasions, when I was 18, he broke up with me, and it destroyed me, I attempted suicide through overdose. It was my dad who found me, carried me in his arms to the car where our neighbour sped me to hospital. Clearly I survived that one.

Of course we got back together, we would have the biggest arguments over him cheating, he would always tell me I was crazy for thinking it. He would tell me things like he made me who I was and without him I would have been nothing, that he built me up and could tear me down just the same. I was 20 the first time I got pregnant. I wanted to keep the baby. He accused me of cheating saying the baby probably wasn't even his and if I wanted to be with him I had to have an abortion. He drove me there himself, dropped me off at the front of the clinic and told me to call him when it was done, when I called him to say it was finished and I was out the front, he took 4 hours to come back and pick me up, standing outside in the rain bleeding into the pad they gave me after taking my baby. That one nearly broke me and it certainly changed me, I became almost blank and cold after that.

I went to my parents after that to try and recover, I was there for 4 weeks while he had an affair with another woman, I had the evidence, but when I confronted him he said I was crazy, and I believed him.

That's when the violence became physical, I would yell and cry and be so confused so he would hold me against the wall by the throat with one hand telling me that if I didn't stop crying he would kill me. That's when I learned not to cry anymore.

He forced me to pay his loans, he debts and buy his drugs. If I refused he would yell at me and tell me if I really love him I would give him what he asked for. I used to have to get payday loans every fortnight to cover all the expenses. I lost my car to debt collectors.

When I was 22 he punched me in the face and my lip split

When I was 23 he forced me to take ice

When I was 24 he forced me to take 14 grams of cocaine with a gun to my head until I overdosed and ended up in intensive care

When I was 25 he slammed me backwards into a cement step and caused a 6mm bleed on my brain

All the while telling me it was my fault he got so angry, and he was so sorry he hurt me but I needed to learn not to push him.

Just before I turned 26 he became an ice addict, he would cry, have severe paranoia and not sleep for weeks at a time. I lost my job and told him I wanted to go to university, his first words were how the fuck are you going to pay my car loan now. That's when I packed my bags, left him, moved in with my parents and went to university. I had therapy and moved on with my life.

When I turned 28 I entered into a relationship with a guy I'd been friends with for 6 months. He seemed perfect, not smart like my ex, sweet and kind. After we were officially together I found out he was an alcoholic and only hadn't been drinking before because he was on bail for common assault.

He would get drunk and start fights with me, punching the wall around me until his hands and wrists were bleeding.

When I was 29 he got so angry he strangled me with both hands on the bed and shook my whole body three times in a row. A few months later when we were out drinking with friends he got angry with me and pushed me to the ground and started shaking me. One of his friends pulled him off, punched him in the face to keep him away from me and called the police. I didn't testify against him telling the court I didn't remember what happened. They court gave him a DVO stating that he could not be around me within 12 hours of drinking alcohol and taking drugs.

We moved in together in a little apartment and everything seemed to be going well when one night he came home drunk stinking of alcohol. He refused to sleep on the couch and started yelling and throwing things around. I told him to leave and I called my Dad to come and take him away. I hid in the wardrobe while he was screaming abuse while I stayed on the phone to my mum. He then came into where I was hiding holding a knife and started cutting his stomach all the while smilling and then held the knife towards me. This was the first time in my life I put my safety first and called the police for help. He ended up going to jail.

I have given my experiences fairly clinically because my story isn't really about the abuse, it's about what it does to you even once you leave it. I am 31 now and have a wonderful boyfriend. But i have a psychological neurological disorder which causes me to faint or have seizures if I'm triggered from my trauma. I still can't cry unless I'm at a complete mental break down. I couldn't even cry at my Grandads funeral. I still check that all my doors and windows are locked. I still jump at sudden noises and look through my blinds if a car drives passed my house. I still use self-harm as a way of feeling my emotional pain. I have to fight every single day to be normal. I have to convince myself every day I didn't deserve the things that happened to me, that it wasn't something wrong with me that put me in a nearly 15 year cycle of abuse. I have to watch my partner crumble when we fight and he sees fear in my eyes, see him blame himself when I self-harm. It's not always the act of violence that breaks a person. It's the years following.