Submissions

I’ve always struggled with substance abuse but at this particular time I was drinking extremely heavily pretty much everyday, i have really bad anxiety and drinking just made me feel so confident and able to talk to people that i just ended up relying on getting really drunk for any social interaction. I started to get a lot of male attention when I was going out to clubs etc and so this led to me ending up at quite a few peoples houses, it just felt so good people actually wanting to talk to me and finding me attractive and i got hooked on this feeling. After a few months of this cycle, my friends introduced me to this lad who i knew of but hadnt really talked to before. He gave me that same feeling, being wanted. Later on in the night he asked me if i wanted to go to his mates accommodation just the two of us. So i said yeah and we walked to his friends accommodation to find out that he hadnt even asked if we could go there and they said we couldnt stay. So we went to the park near by and sat in. a basket swing, this led to us kissing. It was about 2 am and getting really cold, I didnt want to take him home but i didnt have much choice as he lives quite far away. I lived close so i said we could just walk to mine. As you can imagine, we ended up sleeping together. From this night i would get messages off him everyday asking if i wanted to do something, this was usually with my mates so I agreed. We kept just seeing eachother everyday as he became closer with my friends and me, I didnt have much time to think about what I wanted from this as it was so full on. I had previously been in some really toxic relationships and was trying to give myself a break, but I didnt have a second to myself to question whether I was ready or not, so we ended up getting closer and closer until we ended up being exclusive. From the beginning he kept talking about previously girlfriends or girls he’d been talking to and kept saying things to make them out to be horrible people, and made me feel really sorry for him. I did start to question it a bit when he said things about a friend of mine who he had been talking to years ago, and I knew that none of the things he were saying about her were true. But he made me feel so special and like I was so different from all of these other girls. I liked the amount of time we spent together at first, but I got a huge red flag when my close friend was having troubles at home and urgently needed to stay at mine for a night until she found somewhere else. I then received texts off of the lad saying that he was going to camp outside by himself if he couldnt stay at mine, and although he could’ve stayed, I felt it was improved to have some alone time with my friend. He then said he was being followed and that he was going to be stabbed. I was really worried but held my ground because i knew he was being manipulative. Whenever I said I didnt feel like having sex he would go all sad and say “will you play with me then”. so i did. I have previous sexual trauma, and so in most of my relationships ive felt like im not good enough because sometimes i really dont feel like having sex, and so i wanted to make sure I wasnt letting him down. Then lockdown occurred which meant we either had to stay with eachother or not see eachother at all, of course we decided to stay with eachother and he ended up living at my house with my family. So then at this point we literally spent every second with eachother. My family are also vegetarian but he was a really fussy eater so they allowed him to have meat in the house (which i’ve never been able to do) . He started to get really unappreciative of everything, I would cook all of his separate meals for him as he refused to eat anything my family made, and sometimes he would ask me to cook something and then when it was presented to him he would suddenly decide he didnt want it and would complain at me. It was getting really draining, we would have arguments over the smallest things because everything i would do was wrong, and half way through these arguments he would leave my house and then send me horrible messages threatening that if i didnt come and meet him then he would threaten to go home if i didnt go out and meet him, even though he could just come back home and we could talk there, but he wanted to know he had control over me, which i never let him do. I felt really trapped, like I couldnt do anything unless he wanted to do it. One day we had a really bad argument and I decided i needed to go on a walk, told him i wanted to be alone and that I would come back and talk. He then rang me a total of 80 times, texting me demanding me to tell him where i was, even saying things like “keep ignoring my calls i dare you” it even got to a point where I was hiding from him, I could see him through a bush searching for me and it was really horrible i just wanted to be alone for once. He didnt see me and then assumed i will have went to this one spot, then when he got there and i wasnt there, he was going on like “ive went all the way here for no reason” even though i was texting him saying that i just wanted time to myself. He kept ringing and ringing until my phone starting to fuck up, it would turn off everytime he rang, so then i went back home and told him. After these arguments we would never solve the problem, he would just come back crying and saying sorry and then i’d feel sorry for him and move on. This just got worse and worse to the point where i couldnt cope anymore and so i knew i needed to end it, so i did. But all of this manipulation didnt stop. it just got worse. He kept messaging me massive paragraphs saying loads of nice things about me but then in every single one he would suggest that we were going to get back together in the future, sometimes even saying it directly. So in response to these I tried to be as nice as possible whilst also making it clear that this is not what I wanted but he just wouldnt take it. And so one day i got really frustrated and said, look we’re not getting back together how many times do i have to say this. And then after that he completely flipped on me saying all this horrible shit and trying to turn all my friends against me. Soon after the breakup i found out I was pregnant and got a termination, this was the absolute worst time for me, he was making everything so much harder, telling me “no way could we have a kid” , but then telling everyone else he was really depressed about it, so them i got backlash from people saying he shouldve had a choice. And whilst i was in the actual process off the termination, i was receiving messages from him saying that my friends have had a groupchat where they bitch about me and he was in it through our relationship but didnt tell me cos he “didnt want to upset me”. He kept harrassing me trying to make me feel worse and worse and so i blocked him, then he messaged me on his old account kicking off at me for blocking him and further harrassing me. He’s really messed me up because ive lost so many friends, he’s manipulated them all into thinking im a liar and a drama queen and and god knows what else. Im now in a happy and healthy relationship but im still really struggling from the effects this boy has had on my life, hes made me feel so paranoid and anxious because everyone believes his lies about me, and i feel so unheard. Especially since when i tried to call him out for emotional abuse, my friends said hes an angel and he would never do that, or that this is just a normal relationship, when clearly it isnt, and although this is really long its just a short snippet of what he would do to me.

#0026

I just want to say that this group has really helped me cope with my incident that took place earlier this year. I love the fact that there is a platform in which anyone and everyone can post about stuff that\'s bothering them and essentially get it off their chest. Thank you admins and I just want to stress that there is light at the end of the tunnel...it may take time, but once you get there it will be so worth it :)

#0025

I don't believe that misogyny and sexism has reduced over the years. I think that it has just changed in the manner in which it presents itself. Although we are not seeing direct prejudice as it were, for example categorically unable to attend university because you are a woman, (albeit this still prevails in many countries), what we do see is this kind of indirect, passive aggressive discourse and a lot of gaslighting. And that some people in turn accept this behaviour further acknowledges in my mind that we are no where near an end to mysogyny. The best way to be empowered is to educate yourselves, be the best you can be, enjoy your life, do activities and hobbies for your wellbeing, pursue your interests and education and don't let people say " you can't " or even worse and more slyly "you shouldn't because I know as a man/as your bf/as your partner/as anybody, what's best for you". You don't need this attitude in your life and certainly not when dating someone. I know so many people who have been in bad ,toxic relationships where they end up sympathising with the aggressor or trying to be understanding to the aggressor. There is no need to understand. It is just plain wrong. Excuses like "but some women make it difficult" or " but if I don't do this, I don't get a date", "but I learned to be like this because of women" ,"but , but ,but" these are lame excuses in an attempt to make someone feel sorry for them. Do not listen to it. Ignore, avoid and don't look back!

#0024