Toxinebulaic
winter is coming
- Aug 2, 2023
- 38
This time last year I started posting on this site. I don't think I ever actually said why.
The story is relatively simple. Last April, I started dating somebody. After two months of a pretty decent relationship, we became physically intimate. This is when he started using sex as leverage to physically and verbally abuse me, aswell as intentionally embarass me in front of and isolate me from the people I cared about.
This abuse consisted of hitting, kicking, biting, and general non-consensual violence during sex even after I told him to stop, multiple times. It also included kissing other people in front of me, and openly talking about how he was cheating on me, in front of me. He would also constantly insult, patronize, and denigrate me in more turns of phrase than you could count on 15 hands, even after I had talked to him about how much it was affecting my self-esteem.
You might be wondering, after all of that, why didn't I just break up with him? Good fucking question. I suppose the answer is that I was too enthralled by the fact that I was in a romantic and intimate relationship, and for all its flaws, the intimacy still did feel good. I also didn't recognize how bad it was at the time, and I didn't really think that it could be abuse. Part of that was because I am AMAB and identify as a man, while my abuser was AFAB and also identified as a man.
I view this through the lens of female to male abuse not out of disrespect for them and how they identify - though if I was they would most certaily deserve it - but because of how he presents, and becuase of how we were perceived after we broke up. When we broke up, my abuser started openly talking shit about me to every mutual acquaintance we had. When I heard about this, I wrote a long document detailing my experience of our relationship as I saw it in that moment, and sent it to the people I cared about as a way of explaining myself. At least one of them sent this document to my abuser.
It was at this point he decided I had been abusing him, and that I had raped him.
There's nothing I can really say to that except that it's not true, but with the way he presents himself I knew immediately that nobody would take my side. I wouldn't even blame you, the reader, for being suspicious of me and my account of things. For what it's worth, I have always ensured consent to the best of my abilities, and reaffirmed it continuously throughout any intimate contact I've ever had with anybody, because I believe that anything less would be heinous and evil. He obviously didn't feel the same way.
Either way, he was threatening to take legal action, and while I didn't believe that for a second I also didn't want to rock the boat so I didn't say anything to anyone. I suppressed my feelings about it for so long. The weirdest thing is that nobody ever asked about it. I was very obviously not doing well for a long period of time, and nobody I knew really seemed to give a shit.
After contemplating that thought a bit more, I've slowly come to realize that throughout this year, my abuser has gotten exactly what he wanted.
My friends don't talk to me anymore, and have stayed close with him. Some have decided to cut ties with me and start talking to him despite not being friends with him before, simply on account of what has been said about me. After I finally gave up on interpersonal connection, those who I cut loose went back to him to continue their friendship, having only cut ties with him in the first place as not to hurt me.
None of them actually believed me or gave me any credibility when I said that he had abused me.
In other words, my abuser never has to see me, but has the satisfaction of knowing that I am completely alone, and that he has all the support of everybody who once supported me.
And that really, really hurts.
I should probably just get on with it an kill myself.
The story is relatively simple. Last April, I started dating somebody. After two months of a pretty decent relationship, we became physically intimate. This is when he started using sex as leverage to physically and verbally abuse me, aswell as intentionally embarass me in front of and isolate me from the people I cared about.
This abuse consisted of hitting, kicking, biting, and general non-consensual violence during sex even after I told him to stop, multiple times. It also included kissing other people in front of me, and openly talking about how he was cheating on me, in front of me. He would also constantly insult, patronize, and denigrate me in more turns of phrase than you could count on 15 hands, even after I had talked to him about how much it was affecting my self-esteem.
You might be wondering, after all of that, why didn't I just break up with him? Good fucking question. I suppose the answer is that I was too enthralled by the fact that I was in a romantic and intimate relationship, and for all its flaws, the intimacy still did feel good. I also didn't recognize how bad it was at the time, and I didn't really think that it could be abuse. Part of that was because I am AMAB and identify as a man, while my abuser was AFAB and also identified as a man.
I view this through the lens of female to male abuse not out of disrespect for them and how they identify - though if I was they would most certaily deserve it - but because of how he presents, and becuase of how we were perceived after we broke up. When we broke up, my abuser started openly talking shit about me to every mutual acquaintance we had. When I heard about this, I wrote a long document detailing my experience of our relationship as I saw it in that moment, and sent it to the people I cared about as a way of explaining myself. At least one of them sent this document to my abuser.
It was at this point he decided I had been abusing him, and that I had raped him.
There's nothing I can really say to that except that it's not true, but with the way he presents himself I knew immediately that nobody would take my side. I wouldn't even blame you, the reader, for being suspicious of me and my account of things. For what it's worth, I have always ensured consent to the best of my abilities, and reaffirmed it continuously throughout any intimate contact I've ever had with anybody, because I believe that anything less would be heinous and evil. He obviously didn't feel the same way.
Either way, he was threatening to take legal action, and while I didn't believe that for a second I also didn't want to rock the boat so I didn't say anything to anyone. I suppressed my feelings about it for so long. The weirdest thing is that nobody ever asked about it. I was very obviously not doing well for a long period of time, and nobody I knew really seemed to give a shit.
After contemplating that thought a bit more, I've slowly come to realize that throughout this year, my abuser has gotten exactly what he wanted.
My friends don't talk to me anymore, and have stayed close with him. Some have decided to cut ties with me and start talking to him despite not being friends with him before, simply on account of what has been said about me. After I finally gave up on interpersonal connection, those who I cut loose went back to him to continue their friendship, having only cut ties with him in the first place as not to hurt me.
None of them actually believed me or gave me any credibility when I said that he had abused me.
In other words, my abuser never has to see me, but has the satisfaction of knowing that I am completely alone, and that he has all the support of everybody who once supported me.
And that really, really hurts.
I should probably just get on with it an kill myself.
