Trigger Warning: This article describes instances of physical and emotional abuse.
“Abuse” is a heavy word. It carries trauma, violence, manipulation, degradation and so many different types of pain for the millions of people who have been affected. Even so, abusive relationships are something that most know happen, but that few really understand unless they’ve experienced it themselves. These stories from two strong Laurier students give personal, first-hand insight into the realities of abuse and how they were able to grow from it.*
So, tell me a little about your relationship.
Eliza: We started dating halfway through grade eleven and were together for a year and 8 months. He’d been into me for a while and asked me out a couple times but I kept saying no until eventually, I came around to saying yes. The first 8 weren’t too bad, but by about the end of that, we shouldn’t have been together anymore. For the whole of last year, he was just awful. It came in waves though, and I think that’s what made it worse because he wasn’t always so bad.
A: We dated between 14 to 19 after meeting at a fair in grade 9. I was instantly infatuated. I ran into him at school a couple days later and two weeks after that we started dating. It was all a very spontaneous, quick, easy-going type thing. A couple months after my 15th birthday is when I started getting abused. I’d lost my virginity to him that September and the abuse started happening in October though I did know he had some temperament issues before then. He’d be angry, but it wouldn’t really be expressed, and though it did start pretty early into our relationship, it was never directed at me so I thought it was normal.
Was there a turning point?
Eliza: The real beginning of the decline was on my seventeenth birthday when he got me a necklace. I get really upset when people spend a lot of money on me, especially when I can’t reciprocate, and he knew that. He got a call from his dad about owing him like $500 and eventually he said, “I owe him $500 for the necklace I got you.” I started freaking out, crying, then he turns around and goes, “oh, I was just kidding.” It doesn’t seem like much, but that was kind of the beginning and the basis for his manipulation. He knew something would upset me, he’d withhold information, then make it out like it was my fault. After that it just kind of continued and escalated.
A: We were in first year and he broke up with me, not because he didn’t love me anymore – which was the hardest thing – but because he wanted to sleep around. The joke was that I wasn’t allowed to. He wanted the freedom of not having a girlfriend so I couldn’t get mad at him, but there was still so much love that I always had to be around him. By winter semester we’d been having a lot of problems – I didn’t understand why we weren’t dating if he wasn’t actually doing anything with anyone else. When we went home for the break, even though we lived in the same hometown he refused to see me. So he can date me here, and love me here, but not when we’re home? And he basically said he’s not dating me anymore so he doesn’t need to give me attention. That was hard to take because either it meant I wasn’t good enough for this right now or something was wrong and I made him mad.
Why did you stay?
Eliza: Most of the twelfth grade we shouldn’t have been together. There were fights and stuff like that, but I think for September, October, and kind of November, I wanted to see if I could fix it. In November, we were having this huge argument and he basically told me he didn’t love me anymore. That was the real mark of the end – I didn’t really believe anything he said after that. I think if he hadn’t been abusive then I would have been able to leave at that point, but we’d been dating for 10 months so he knew how to play with my emotions. He would guilt trip me, and we’d get into fights that he’d blame on me, so I thought all of it was my fault. I did try to leave on a couple of occasions, but he always promised to change so I’d give him another chance. He also made it seem like I couldn’t live without him and made it very clear that he couldn’t live without me; he insinuated that he would self-harm or kill himself if I left, which is a lot of pressure to put on somebody! But at 17 years old, you don’t really know any better.
A: It was an addiction to love someone that hard – I was giving him every ounce of me and had this weird fixation on wanting to fix him. I don’t know how I wrapped my head around it being so young, but basically, I justified what he did with the fact that he loved me, and it was because he loved me that he was doing these bad things. It was addicting to get that much love because when he was nice, he was so nice, and every single ounce of me needed to be near him. Knowing that I was capable of that, of being so in love with someone, I just felt like we had to continue to date. Even knowing I was deteriorating, he loved me, which meant no one else was going to get hurt, and I was okay with taking that on me. The cons definitely outweighed the pros, but it’s easy to forget that when he’s telling you everything you want to hear.
How did it end?
Eliza: In February we had a conversation where I said I’d leave, but he promised he’d be better, and it was for a little while. Again, at this point we’d been together for a long time, so he was very, very good at manipulating me and my emotions. Then in June, I said again I wanted to break up; he told me he’d change, but I was just done. We got back together two weeks later. In those 2 weeks, we were apart, I made out with this other guy. I didn’t tell my ex about it until over text right before I got on a flight to Europe. I was terrified of actually talking to him because a time before, he went through my texts while I was in the bathroom and got so angry when he saw a conversation I had about him that he turned around and punched a wall. My first thought was he could have turned around and hit me.
I told him about the hook-up when I was leaving because I knew I wouldn’t have to see him for two weeks, so by the time I came back he would have cooled down. He was angrier than I’d ever seen him and started saying these terrible things to me, calling me a slut, a whore, a liar. He said he could never trust me, told me that I was trash, that he hoped I would never come home, that he hoped my plane crashed. Those comments went on for days and eventually I asked if we were done then, and he told me of course we were. But a friend texted me to say he was telling everyone we’re still together, so I messaged him and he said that because I didn’t say anything after, it wasn’t concrete. And I was like, well fuck you. That was kind of when I realized the situation I was in and how bad it was. He wanted to talk when I came home, but I told him I wouldn’t change my mind. When I got there, I was just so tired, so exhausted that I didn’t even have it in me anymore to be mad or upset. That was the last time I saw him.
A: When we were home for the break, I hooked up with a guy from high school. I wasn’t planning to tell my ex about it but then the guy called me and said he may have had an STI. I had hooked up with my ex when I got back to school so now I needed to tell him about it. I take that to this day as something telling me this is it, you need to sort your shit out and make sure this guy never touches you again. Anyway, I remember going to his room and tell him “hey, I know you’re going to be super pissed off with me, but I need you to try to breathe and talk to me.” I was shaking, I was so terrified. All of a sudden, he stops paying attention, pulls out these strings from under his bed and tells me to tie his hands behind his back and to his dresser because “If I’m going to be so mad at you, I don’t want to hit you.” I asked, “you can’t just not hit me?” and he said no. So I did it, hands shaking, and when I told him what happened, his face changed into a totally different person. He started calling me a whore, telling me he hates me. Then the dresser door moved forward and I had to jump backwards because he was too close. He spat at my feet and it was like, this is great because now I’m degraded, now I’m less than a human being. I felt awful, so I untied him, and I stood on the opposite side of the room talking to him. He wasn’t even listening. Then he picked up the closest thing and whipped it at me. It hit my side, and I started to bleed.
Right away, it was a complete switch. He was all, “baby, baby, I’m so sorry,” and he was crying, and I just told him please do not touch me right now. He ran off into the shower, sat under the water, and just kept saying how he’s not a monster. I knew the routine: pick him up, put him into his room, make sure he’s fine, tell him that I’m okay and I love him, then give him space to calm down. So I did that, and then I left, went to my best friend’s room on the same floor and told her “he did it again.” She saw the blood dripping down my shirt, called another friend of mine, and got me out of there. That night was kind of the change for me because it was the last time before I told somebody, and once I told one person, suddenly everyone had to know.
How did you get through it afterwards?
Eliza: I think it was the last encounter that I really realized he was treating me like shit, but I hadn’t put the label on it of ‘abusive’ until I was talking about it with my roommates in first year. Through those conversations, how they were looking at me, and the things they’d heard at their schools, it started to click that maybe it had been an abusive situation. He never hit me, but everything else he did was abusive, and you don’t need to get hit for it to be an abusive relationship. The love was pretty much gone for a long time before we broke up, but he was my first real boyfriend, so I just kept going along with it. In terms of the relationship part, I was already over him by the time we broke up and I left for school. The abusive stuff took a little while to kick in. I ended up talking to a therapist about it since I was so terrified of ending up in a relationship like that again, and not realizing until I was in too deep. But I think the big thing is being able to go to my friends about it. So overall, talking through it really helped.
A: I handled that horribly. I’m handling it better now, but I didn’t know how to breathe. I hadn’t been eating or sleeping, I wasn’t going to school, I wasn’t talking to anyone. I was just so sad and so done. One night when all my roommates were home, I took all the empty bottles and all the pills I had in my room, put them on the table and said I needed their help or I would kill myself. They sent me to the gendered advocate at school who taught me how to breathe again. First year was awful, but second was worse and the school sent me home on suicide watch. Going home and being with my friends, I got somewhat better, but it was still really hard. I was diagnosed with three different mental illnesses, which made everything worse because I was so mad at him for being able to live his life while I was here with suffering because of him. I’m in third year now, I have a support system and am handling it much better.
Does your experience have an effect on your relationships now?
Eliza: It definitely does. I got into a relationship pretty quickly afterwards, and even if something wasn’t necessarily abusive behaviour, I would overanalyze it. What is he doing? Does he have an ulterior motive? I knew it wasn’t my fault, and that’s something I was very grateful for because not everyone is lucky enough to have that, especially right away. And I wouldn’t necessarily say I think about it as negatively as I used to — now it’s something that happened in my past, and I learn and I grow from it. I have my warning signs and I think it’s important to be aware, but also to take each situation and individual as their own.
A: Incredibly. I go through phases of wanting to be with somebody, but at the same time, I feel like I don’t want anyone to touch me again. Also, saying “I love you” is a massive thing for me. The idea that somebody might say it freaks me out to a whole new level because my ex said I love you, and he still did what he did. It also gets me super excited though, which sounds weird, but if I was able to love somebody so much when it was so toxic, then I can only think about what I’d be capable of when it’s so good. I’m just not expecting right that now someone is going to take the time to figure things out with me while I’m still figuring it out myself. It definitely affects me now in terms of when I think I’ll be ready – only being 20 and having experienced what I experienced, I can definitely wait a little longer.
Is there anything you would want to say to someone else going through it?
Eliza: I would say talking to your friends is the biggest thing, and if you don’t have someone close to got to, talk to a counsellor about it. Just to say hey, this is some stuff that’s been going on. That’s what would have helped me a lot because they could tell me that what he was doing and saying to me was not okay. The other thing is that it is absolutely not your fault, you do not deserve the way they are treating you. That’s the biggest thing that I want anyone who’s going through this to know. It is their responsibility, and even if it takes you a while to get out, that’s okay. Whatever was happening, that’s their fault, not yours.
A: Don’t mistake love with abuse, no matter how charming somebody is or how great you feel when he’s being nice. Write every moment down so, at the end, when you have that strength, when you feel that you’re courageous, you have everything you need to send their ass to court as fast as you can if that’s what you desire. Also, find support, or at least one support to help find others for you when you’re ready to look for help. I’d let them know a lot of us end up with mental health issues, which get pushed aside as ‘just the trauma,’ but they’re a lot scarier than you think they are. Be patient with yourself and know that it’s not your fault. Know that there will be moments that you do think that, and they’re going to suck, they’re going to hurt so badly. At the end of the day, as much as it hurts and as much as you loved that person, understand that you have to love yourself more. The time for healing is not linear, not in the slightest, and you’ll have the crappy days to remind you that it’s gonna be okay.
*Names have been replaced for anonymity, and responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.