ALright, so this is going to be really all over the place, but I need to organize my thoughts right now. So, I have come to the realization that I was emotionally abusive in my past, specifically in my relationship with Mitchell.
I am reading articles on it and I’m starting to get back into my back and forth thinking cycles about the rape thing and emotional abuse that he did to me. So all in all, rape and sexual assault should not be tolerated or forgiven. I have stood by that forever. But when I get into my head about the situation, I try to look at all perspectives and I see that I don’t think or believe that Mitchell raped me with the intent to hurt me or do any damage. I think he was only looking at the rewards and the instant gratification. I don’t think he thought about the consequences until afterwards. Like I know that he made the decision to take off the condom without telling me. From his side, I believe deep down that he truly didn’t mean to cause harm. But the thing is, it still caused harm and trauma for me after I was told. So, i’m in the position of being really hurt by this incident, but then looking at all perspectives and thinking that he didn’t mean to cause any harm, it just happened that way. But then I get upset because that makes it sound like I’m excusing his actions. But i’m not. I’m not trying to downplay what he did at all because I think it is extremely disgusting what he did to me. But then I go back in my head and tell myself that it was not his intention to make me hurt as badly as I did and still do.Â
So with that said, I don’t know what to think or come to the conclusion to because everything is very grey. I just still feel very uneasy about the situation. I still feel stuck. I feel like I can’t move on comfortably like I would like to.
And when I was just browsing the internet about emotional abuse to try to find support from what I went through in that relationship, I actually read and digested everything on the sites and started crying. I realized that I have done quite a few of the things on lists towards him and I gave me time to read and reflect and I just couldn’t stop crying. I felt so ashamed. I think when I read lists like this last year, I always realized that I had done some of these things, but I never spent a lot of time on them because I went back to what he did to me. I never spent time to think about the emotional abuse that I did to him. I think it’s because it’s such a hard thing to admit. It’s so hard to admit that you caused lots of pain in someone else’s life. I also read something in an article saying that it’s really hard to accept that you have abused someone when they have abused you is because you look at it in black and white where someone is the abuser and the other person is the victim, when in reality, it’s much more grey. Most of the time, the abuser is also being abused and the abused could also be an abuser. That opened up my eyes to realize that that relationship was extremely toxic (which I already knew) because of both of us being emotional abusive to one another, plus the sexual abuse from him. I want to list the emotionally abusive things that I have done in that relationship specifically.Â
1. coercive behaviors (I would do attention seeking things, mostly make up problems that don’t exist, to try to get his attention. And when I say make up, I mean that at the time, I thought they were real problems, but an hour later, I realized that I blew something out of proportion just to get attention. Which never worked anyways.)
2. I think I tried to isolate him in certain ways (I wanted him to spend an equal amount of time with all of his partners, which he did not. I was always the one left out and he always could find time with the other girls, but not me. So I got upset about that a lot of times)
3. overly communicative through social media. (I would get upset if he didn’t respond immediately and I would blow up his phone on a regular basis)
4. I didn’t respect all of his boundaries- mostly about his alone time (but then on the other hand, he isolated himself from me a lot and ignored me on multiple occasions)
5. I made him feel like he had to walk on eggshells (I am very emotional and got upset pretty easily. But most of the time, I did have a reason to be upset. I was reassured by my friends that I was not being overly emotional most of the time.)
6. deny emotionally abusive behavior when confronted (I literally had no idea that what i was doing was emotionally abusive until like 5 minutes ago, so I am sorry).
Those are the things that I believe I have done in the relationship and I feel very guilty about those things. I don’t believe the above things should be in a healthy relationship. Obviously, it was not healthy. I also want to list the emotionally abusive things that Mitchell did in the relationship.
1. Gaslighting was the main thing for sure. It’s been a year not being with him and I still feel like i’m crazy or what he did to me was all my fault.
2. disregarding my opinions (I told him my boundaries in the relationship and he repeatedly told me that they did not matter and he was going to continue to do as he pleases)
3. Disrespected my boundaries
4. Rejection (he chose not to hang out with me based on my mood. If I was having a rough time that day, he would ignore me or flake on me last minute to hang out with his other girlfriend.)
5. Victim Blaming (he blamed me for him raping me. He said that he did it to please me)
6. Emotional withholding (he would ignore me a lot. He would withhold communicating a lot of things to me that is important in a relationship, as well as give me silent treatments, and withhold intimacy)
7. They regularly demean or disregard your opinions, ideas, suggestions, or needs. (he was poly, so boundaries are important as to waht counts as cheating and what doesn’t. Once I told him what he did was cheating, he told me that I wasn’t letting him be his true self and I was holding him back to who he truly was. This was after he made out with someone without talking to me or any of his other partners about it. all of his partners told him that it was cheating.)
8. They accuse you of being “too sensitive” in order to deflect their abusive remarks. (He always blamed whatever I was feeling with my mental Illness. If I was upset at him, he told me that it was my mental illness and he did nothing wrong. So I started second guessing everything I thought about him and how he treated me. I started thinking that I should let him treat me like garbage because i’m just overexagerating.)
9. They try to control you and treat you like a child. (He talked down to me a lot. I felt like a dog. I brought this up to him and he told me, basically bragged, about how much smarter he is and he can’t help it if he talks like that.)
10. They correct or chastise you for your behavior. (see above reason)
11. They belittle and trivialize you, your accomplishments, or your hopes and dreams. Â
12. They try to make you feel as though they are always right, and you are wrong. (gaslighting- he always told me that it was my anxiety, or it was all in my head. I was overexagerating everything I was feeling when he treated me wrong. So, I felt like my feelings were always invalid. I just trusted what I was told.) Â
13. They accuse or blame you of things you know aren’t true. (basically read everything above.But, I eventually believed what he said was all true and I was just crazy)
14. They are intolerant of any seeming lack of respect. (My feelings were never accounted for. He always said that what I do doesn’t affect your feelings. For a part of that, I do believe that people are not responsible for other people’s emotions, but at the same time, he literally did not care how his actions or words affected me ever. There’s a difference between knowing where the line is and having no space to care about how you affect anyone at all, ever.)
15. They make excuses for their behavior, try to blame others, and have difficulty apologizing. (When I reported him for rape to my university, he blamed it on his mental illness, specifically ADHD and bipolar. But that’s only one of the instances.)
16. The repeatedly cross your boundaries and ignore your requests. (See above for the general idea of him not respecting my boundaries. I also told him that I don’t want to hear about anything sexual with your other partners and I don’t want to hear about your other partner’s personal lives, but I ended up seeing a nude picture of one, knowing very personal stories about each of them, and also realizing that they know almost every personal detail about me as well, even though I told him that I don’t want my information going to any of his partners.)
17.They resort to pouting or withdrawal to get attention or attain what they want. (withdraw all the time)
 18. They don’t show you empathy or compassion. (he very rarely cared about my feelings. He did not compromise to help. Compromise is needed in a relationship)
19. They play the victim and try to deflect blame to you rather than taking personal responsibility. (He blamed him raping me on his mental illness, etc)
20. They disengage or use neglect or abandonment to punish or frighten you. (Again, he stopped talking to me if I was in a bad mood. Very rarely would he talk to me on bad moments. He also stranded me at the hospital once after he called the cops on me)
21. They don’t seem to notice or care about your feelings. (already covered this)
With all that said, I know that I was completely unaware of the fact that i was being emotional abusive to him. I am not sure if he was aware he was being emotional abusive towards me. I have confronted him in the past about a few of the things in the list and he always said that he never meant to do certain things, but most of the things on the list, I have not confronted him with, so I’m not sure if he actually knows or realizes that he does some of those things. It’s not really conclusive if he was emotionally abusive on purpose, because I know I surely was not. I never meant to act that way or do those things above and it breaks my heart. I know that he has hurt me in so many ways, but I still don’t believe that he deserved what I did to him. No one deserves to hurt in these ways. I’m not really sure on how to move past this. I think writing this was the first step. I think I need to get back into counseling this fall. I won’t be able to go to counseling all year, but I will be able to go until decemeber, which is better than nothing.Â
Even with coming to terms with some of this, it still never excuses anything. It will never excuse my behavior and it will never excuse his behavior. What we both did in the relationship was not okay. We had good times, along with the bad. Neither erase the other and neither condone the other. I just think that this is a lot of grey area and i’m not used to dealing or coping with grey area. I’ve lived with black and white thinking my entire life and now I have to learn to come to terms with things that aren’t as easy as definitive answers and conclusions. Life is messy and not everything fits in nice little boxes.Â
