Wide Awake: Realising You’re In A Toxic Relationship
He may be sweet and kind, but he might also make you feel like you’re losing your mind. Realising the person you love is hurting you is extremely difficult to come to terms with. It took me several months to fully accept it. We don’t want to believe our partners are capable of harming us. We think that only happens to others when it can happen to anyone.
Maybe they make you feel low about yourself or like you can’t make a simple comment or complaint without an argument, or they’re jealous and possessive. All of these are signs of an abusive relationship.
My first signs were when I asked others if it was normal when he'd say or do things I was unsure about. Things like talking about the future too quickly, saying he loved me after a month and even trying to get me to consider moving out of my parents'. Everyone I knew said it wasn't normal. If I wasn't comfortable with it, then it wasn't normal. Like most people, I ignored the voice telling me it wasn't working because I wanted it to work. He treated me right, I loved him, and, for a while, that was enough.
But the love bubble burst early. I found myself defending him to others for making me feel like a horrible person. I was so convinced he would dump me over little things and soon spiralled; crying on my bedroom floor as I listened to him berate me over the phone. Perhaps part of me wanted him to dump me, like I deserved it. I struggle with self-confidence, so to me this was justified. I was this horrible girlfriend, and I was lucky he stuck around.
However, that’s not what love is. Love is kind and forgiving, so what was he thinking? That I was his and his alone. That sounded and felt wrong to me. But how did I realise this was a toxic relationship I needed to leave?
Everyone I’ve told about it has told me I was lucky to get out when I did, as if it were a ticking time bomb. Then there was Instagram. I saw more and more Instagram posts raising awareness for abusive relationships, and all I saw in them were checklists. I would sob into my pillow over the realisation that my boyfriend was checking off a list of abusive behaviours. I’ve cried since. It’s a horrible realisation that somebody who loves you, could hurt you. It left me numb.
Skip forward a couple of months, I began working for a women’s charity. On my first week, I attended a virtual conference about domestic abuse. Within the first ten minutes a professor spoke about a timeline she’d devised on how an abusive relationship progresses. I sat there staring at a list of behaviour: possessiveness, pushing the relationship further, demanding commitment, and all I saw was another checklist. I saw my relationship in a single slide, and my heart broke again.
This was researched and factual, and it confirmed that I was right to walk away and put myself first. I wasn’t making things up or blowing them out of proportion. I was right, but it didn’t stop things from hurting.
This feeling is just from two months, so I can’t imagine how it would feel if I had stayed longer. Although, one thing I do know is that the day after I left him, I felt like I could breathe again, and nothing could take that away from me.
by Sophie Hutchison
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(also featured in Bloom I05)
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