We were friends for a year before we dated. Our friend group knew he had substance abuse issues and some decided to cut him out of their lives until he seeked therapy/medication. I felt angry for him. Why didn’t they believe in him? Why couldn’t they stand by him? If friends are meant to be our biggest supporters, I felt they left him in his lowest time. He called me one night about to commit suicide. I called an ambulance. He had to get his stomach pumped in the hospital. After that, he told us that he was going to a therapist and was getting better. Time went by. I went through a breakup and he supported me through it. He ended up falling for me. It took me a while to fall for him as at the time I saw him as a friend. But eventually through his elaborate romantic gestures and our time together, I fell for him too. We dated for 2.5 years. The first time he hit me was a nonconsensual slap across the face during oral sex. It had been a magical night before that at his fraternity’s semi formal. He apologized, got me flowers, and claimed he’d never do it again. The second time he got blackout drunk, was on opioids for his “chronic migraine” (which we believe was actually from the drugs… he would mysteriously get tons of opioids on unmarked bottles that none of us knew where they came from and use them to get high), and he had been smoking marijuana. He shoved me outside of a bar after causing a scene at his fraternity formal. I had been late because I got locked out of a hotel room. He blamed me for it even though our friends were drunkenly inside having sex. He unnecessarily tried to cause drama between us. That same night he punched one of his best friends in the face (giving him a black eye) and hit a pledge. When we got back to our college town after the formal, I asked him if he remembered doing that to me. He left without even caring to address it. I took a pregnancy test a few days later and found out I was pregnant. We had a condom break. I hoped it wouldn’t have resulted in anything but it did. I knew that this baby would mean everything to me even despite the difficulties. I told him I was pregnant. He gave me a sweet tea and I ended up miscarrying a few hours later. I’ve always wondered if he put something in that sweet tea as the timing was too strange and it didn’t taste right. Throughout the relationship, he promised he would do right by me. He promised he’d quit substances. He even promised my parents at one point to win me back. He made a million promises. By the end of it, I found out he slept with my best friend, tried to sleep with numerous other women, got me pregnant again and left for several months which left me in complete agony, he threw things at walls, he hit me, he shoved me, he mocked me for the state of my mental health after all of his abuse, he dumped me on the day my dad got cancer, he begged to get back together only to get me pregnant again after finishing in me nonconsensually, cheated on me even more, and hit me across the face after I found out. All of those years came crashing down around me as I realized I spent the best years of my life in college (3 out of 4 years) trying to protect someone who only hurt me. I found out he raped a girl, sexually assaulted other girls, and was dealing drugs. The relationship wasn’t all bad otherwise I never would’ve stayed, but I spent the most formative years of my early adulthood believing in a man who was immensely harmful. I relate to Lily’s story. My dad was abusive my whole life. I grew up with an abusive father figure and I learned to tolerate abusive red flags. I couldn’t discern them. It wasn’t until it was too late and I was in too deep that I realized what it was. I have PTSD now. I will be forever changed from the abuse that man gave me. Before he left, he told me that I had to lie to his mom. I found out that he had told her we were in an on/off relationship so that every time he cheated she would think we were just broken up. I told her we hadn’t been. He said that I had to tell her that he never cheated on me or else he’d leave. I told him that I didn’t care to live a lie anymore. I wasn’t going to be gaslit anymore. I stood up for myself and he left. After that, he threatened to leak nude photos of me (as if everything else he did wasn’t enough). His entire family was crazy. I spent years trying to be friendly with them only to realize at the end that the Apple didn’t fall far from the tree. He claimed his mom was abusive and his dad used to be in a gang. They seemed normal in the beginning. Happy to see me. Thrilled to have me around. She’d get me little gift baskets and we’d go to art classes to bond. When I got pregnant and found out about his cheating, him and his family did a 180. It was the worst experience of my life. I have PTSD triggers about the idea of being pregnant again. It’s hard to imagine having a family one day again after everything he did to me. I broke the cycle by leaving but I will be left with scars for the rest of my life.

Healing Through Empowering Yourself and Others

Part of healing is wondering where to go from here. I spent a long time trying to figure myself out. The friends I had were no longer really there (he isolated me from them, he slept with my best friend, he made me spend an exorbitant amount of time with his friends so that they’d become my friends but I never really spent time with my own. At the end of the relationship, all of those mutual friends disappeared as they were never really mine). I spent time rebuilding the friendships he isolated me from and making new friends. I put time into discovering what I liked vs didn’t like, learning new hobbies, going on multiple first dates with new people to try to learn more about red flags and what things should be like. I was moving on but I was still left with this feeling of not knowing what to do with the life lessons I’d been handed. When the dust settles and the cracks are still there, what do you do with all the memories? After going through all of that, where do you find purpose? I found purpose in helping to advocate for kids in abusive homes in courts. I find purpose when I show up to work to teach abused kids how to find inner confidence, find a sense of self worth, cope with stress, and emotionally regulate in ways their abusive parents never taught them. I find purpose when I help battered women find the strength to leave in the hardest and darkest times. I find purpose when I give advice to women who are experiencing the red flags of domestic violence. I find purpose helping other women through their pain because I believe no woman should have to endure that pain. I believe that the legal and foster systems as a whole need a lot of change in order to promote healthier families, relationships, and healing. I hope that one day things can change for the better. I hope that one day there will be more protections in place to keep women and children safe from abusers (digital protections, options for non hormonal birth control that all women can utilize, ways to catch abuse at home on camera or recording if the woman or child is prevented from accessing devices as abuse needs to be very well documented in order to get protections). I hope that we can create more programs to help women who have gone through pregnancies/miscarriages in abusive relationships as it’s rarely talked about and is a highly vulnerable situation to be in. I hope that we can create more programs to help young adults entering college (who may have grown up in abusive homes) learn more about how to break the cycle and avoid toxic relationships.

How To Find Help

Something that I wish I knew is that you don’t need a lot of money to bring an abuser to court. In my case, my abusive dad tried all sorts of methods to scare me from bringing my abuser to court. He threatened to stop paying for my college, to take my mode of transportation, phone, money for food, etc. He enabled my abusive ex boyfriend. If you need to bring an abuser to court, you can contact the local bar to find pro bono lawyers for domestic violence. You can also get help finding a lawyer through local women’s shelters. My advice is to document the dates and descriptions of everything that has happened as it happens. Take pictures. Get recordings. Even if you’re unsure if it was an accident or whatever the case may be, collect evidence. If you need a rape kit, contact your local sexual assault center. You never know when you may need the evidence.