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andivmg · 3 months

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speak up andi, I beg of you, you have been mistreated the most here, I know it took shubble a lot of courage but she has helped so many people

i want to start this off by saying it is not a competition and i do not want to compare my experience to anybody else’s. shubble is so fucking strong and i admire her and everyone else who has spoken up about experiencing abuse endlessly.

DISCLAIMER 1

this is way longer than i intended it to be. i did not plan to go into as much depth as i did but the words just kinda kept coming and i kept thinking that if someone else is in a similar situation to the one i was in, it would be good to point out even some of the smaller details so that they can see that these behaviors are not something to be overlooked and could be a symptom of a bigger issue… idk. i apologize for how lengthy and wordy this is but i hope it all makes sense somehow

DISCLAIMER 2

a lot of you know who one of my exes is and i am asking you to please not make this about him. i am simply sharing my experience with some of my past relationships in hopes that they help someone else. i beg of you, do not go on twitter making threads speculating on whatever because it’s just going to cause me a bunch of problems and i don’t want this to be brought to his attention. if you share my story, please do not do it with the intent of starting drama. if you share my story, focus on the behaviors i am talking about instead of trying to figure out if it’s about him.

DISCLAIMER 3

this goes without saying but i’ll put it here anyway: i will be talking about toxic relationships, mention of self harm, mention of sex, implied violence. if any of these topics are triggering to you please scroll away, protect yourself.

I have been in a lot of relationships, but there are 4 that i would truly identify as the ones who had the biggest impact on me. Two of those i would consider emotional mistreatment. I don’t want to say i was abused for reasons that i will be discussing with my therapist this week, but i can certainly say i was mistreated. For the sake of privacy, i will be referring to these two dudes as 1 and 6.

I think the biggest difference between 1 and 6 is that 6 was obsessed with me to the point where i felt like i was being suffocated, whereas i’m not sure if 1 ever cared about me in the first place.

6 and i started out pretty normally. we had a bunch of friends in common and we were around the same people. so eventually, we became friends too. we would text and call all the time until feelings developed into a relationship. in the beginning he was really sweet and caring, saying all the right things that got me falling head over heels. now, something important to note is that i am someone who has always had a lot of guy friends. when i was little and in school, my mom made friends with a bunch of other moms and those moms were boy moms, so i grew up surrounded by boys. i bring this up because 6 didn’t like my guy friends. actually, i think he just didn’t like the fact that i had guy friends at all. so, whenever i would hang out with my friends, it was a problem. so this resulted in me never being able to go out or hang out with my friends unless he was there. then it got worse. before we started dating he had decided to cut back on drinking and to stop smoking. so because of this, i decided that i wouldn’t drink or smoke around him in solidarity. this was not enough for him. i had to stop drinking and smoking altogether. so once, when i was hanging out with my girl friends we decided to stay in and get wine drunk. we posted about it on our private stories on snap and once he saw, 6 called me arguing and yelling at me because i was drinking and posting about it on my story for “attention”. after this incident, i was no longer allowed to hang out with my friends because they were a “bad influence”. he also didn’t like the clothes i wore. sorry, let me reiterate: he didn’t like my clothes when he wasn’t around. it was perfectly fine for me to wear a short dress… if i was with him. i was not allowed to wear “revealing” clothing if he wasn’t around. mind you, none of the clothes i wore were revealing, it’s not my fault i’m hot yk? he took over my life. who i talked to, what i did, what i wore, where i would go, it was all up to him. my life no longer belonged to me. and at the time, i was okay with that. i didn’t realize that he had so much control over everything. i was young and naïve and he convinced me that he knew what was best for me. that he had lived more than i had and experienced more than i had and that he knew better. he was so good at making everything my fault and making him the hero or victim depending on the situation. i got catcalled on the street? “because you were wearing that fucking dress again, andrea you know how that looks. of course you got catcalled. this is why you can’t wear things like that when i’m not around to protect you”. I decided to have a fun night in with my friends and get drunk? “i just don’t understand why you would be posting yourself on your private story like that. you’re drunk and vulnerable. why do you want other people, other guys, to see you like that? and you know i’ve cut back on drinking so how do you think it makes me feel to see that? don’t you love me enough to do this for me?” the worst part is i believed him. because, in the beginning, he helped me so much and i looked up to him so much, surely he had my best interests at heart, right? this relationship went on for way longer than it should have. you may be asking yourself, how did you leave? if you were so in love with him and entranced by him to the point where he consumed you, why did you leave? he raised his hand. that’s what got me to finally leave. a year after we broke up, i found out that he was drinking, smoking, and doing all kinds of shit he told me he wasn’t throughout our entire relationship. he was awful, and i’m really proud of myself for being strong enough to leave when i did. i’m also really grateful for my friends, who stuck out that whole train wreck with me. who i lashed out against in order to protect him and defend him. they stuck by me through it all and i don’t know where i would be without them so shoutout to them lmfao.

1 was a bit more complicated. it started out in a similar way. we had the same friends, hung out around the same people, so it was only a matter of time until we became friends too. we would call and text every day until feelings were developed. at least i developed feelings, i’m still not sure he did. i told him this and i don’t remember how the conversation went but basically we had decided that we were talking as more than friends now. enough time went by where i was ready for it to become a relationship and i communicated that to him. looking back, i think he felt pressured into the relationship by me and by our friends. anyway we started dating and everything was fine. we would hang out and talk all the time but i felt like he was bored or disinterested by me, so i would constantly beg for his attention. i became this needy clingy version of myself that i hated. it felt like when we would hang out, he was always distracted by something else. i basically felt invisible to him. that is, when i wasn’t hanging out with my guy friends. similarly to 6, 1 did not like my guy friends or the fact that i had guy friends in the first place. i had a guy best friend at the time who is one of the most amazing people i have ever met. let’s call him S. S and 1 were acquainted with each other, hung out in the same circles etc. but 1 still didn’t like him. sometimes, whenever 1 was busy doing whatever he did when he wasn’t with me, i would hang out with S, we would watch shows together and just talk. Some days, it felt like i talked to S more than my own boyfriend. this did not sit well with 1. he would ask “why the fuck are you always hanging out with him?” to which i would reply “maybe if you hung out with me more, i wouldn’t have so much free time to spend with him” (toxic ik but what can i say? i was feeling neglected). so you can see what problems this caused. eventually i cut S off. I stopped talking to him completely and i haven’t spoken to him since. Back to 1. even after cutting off my best friend, nothing really changed. He didn’t spend much time with me and whenever we would, i felt like he couldn’t wait to go off and do something else. this got exhausting. at that point i was begging him to love me, to pay attention to me, to care about me. this led to us breaking up. he broke up with me over text. it read, and i quote, “i think we aren’t meant for each other. i think you deserve someone that will treat you better than i do. I don’t think i’m in love with you and i tried to force myself to love you because i thought that’s what i wanted but i really don’t think it is. we started this relationship when i was just tired of being alone and i really just don’t think it is right anymore. i don’t think i am attracted to you. I am sorry, i really didn’t know how to end this and this probably isn’t the best way to do it but it’s time”. The relationship went on for another six months after this. granted, i should have had more self respect and never gotten back together with him but it is what it is. so after he told me that he didn’t love me and that he wasn’t attracted to me, we stayed “friends”. which basically meant that we did everything that a relationship involved. without actually being in a relationship. that is, until one of his friends hit me up. there was some flirtation going on but nothing serious. i was still in love with 1 but, at the time, i was in desperate need for attention and his buddy was there to provide it. when i told 1 about it he flipped out, called me all kinds of crazy and decided he was done with me. his friend and i talked about it and poked fun at the fact that he broke up with me but got mad at someone else paying attention to me. when 1 saw this (he ended up forcing me to show him the screenshots of the conversation) he was even more pissed and even more done with me. the next day he called me and we were basically back together again.

however, this time, i was meant to earn his affection. because i did something so unforgivable and atrocious, he was basically in the clear to treat me like shit. and he did. he would cancel plans to go hang out with his friends. he would only come over late at night, even when i had class the next day. i was basically at his mercy. we only hung out when he decided. we only spoke when he wanted to. i honestly can’t even recall us going on any date after that incident, save for one dinner. in short, i was not a priority to him. this, combined with some other stuff, really took at toll on my mental health. i entered a deep depression and began self-harming after being clean for 3 years. i sought out help and found a wonderful therapist who really helped me. but, 1 only saw this as one more problem. when we hung out he would complain that i was too sad. important note: because of that text he sent me i was incredibly insecure. so, little arguments would always end up escalating because i felt like he literally did not care about me and he would just keep making me feel like shit about being depressed. whenever we argued (which was very often) it would end in me locking myself in the bathroom, sobbing, nearly throwing up, while he was on his phone. i remember one specific argument started because he asked me if i would leave him for harry styles and i jokingly said yes (i am not and have never been attracted to harry styles). that argument escalated to the point where we almost broke up and he said to me “you should warn people before they fall in love with you that you are so mentally ill. because you’re always going to bring down the mental state of who you’re with”. he used my mental health against me like that a lot. whenever i would bring up something i wanted him to do or something that i didn’t like, he would call me needy, clingy, and say that he was trying his best but that i needed too much, that i was too much. all i wanted was reassurance. looking back, that’s all i ever asked for. whenever i would ask him if he loved me he would say “well i’m with you aren’t i?”. this is the same man who decided to go to vegas with his friends on my birthday after he promised he wouldn’t. this is the same man who said that he didn’t love me. the same one who said he wasn’t attracted to me. the same man who i would catch looking at other girl’s (some being his “friends”) provocative pictures on twitter. (this is definitely tmi so i’m just going to put a bunch of asterisks at the end of the tmi so you can skip there if you don’t want to read it) but there was a long period of time in our relationship where we had zero intimacy, and it wasn’t because of me. this fucked with my head a lot because i had this idea that because i was so emotional and needy that i could compensate physically. but when that stopped, my thoughts looked something like “the only thing i was useful for was sex and now he doesn’t even want that from me”.************whenever i remember this, a part of me thinks he might’ve been cheating on me during that time, but i have no proof so i guess we’ll never know. also during that time period, we were arguing over the same things over and over “it feels like you don’t love me” “but i’m hanging out with you” “that’s not the same as loving me” “you’re so fucking needy. and then you wonder why i don’t like coming over”. it was exhausting. we had the same friend group. and even our friends got so sick of us that they would tell me to break up with him. this went on for months until one day, on our one year anniversary, he told me that his plans for the day included playing video games. nothing else. that’s when i broke up with him. that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. i just couldn’t do it anymore.

we stayed friends afterwards in order to keep the peace within the friend group. after about a month, he told me he was going to do better. he said he was going to start going to the gym, and maybe even going to therapy, that he was going to eat better and live a better lifestyle for me. he said he was going to plan dates for us and treat me the way i deserved etc. very much vibes from that one euphoria scene. but i was done. maybe i didn’t communicate that well enough to him and that’s my fault. but i was really confused at the time and i didn’t know what i wanted. eventually we had a conversation and that’s when i told him that i was no longer interested in a relationship. i think i just didn’t believe him anymore. i didn’t believe that he would change for me or anyone else for that matter. through the entire relationship he was mean to me, he neglected me, belittled me, and overall made me feel like shit at worst and invisible at best. even when i would offer to plan things or suggest activities for us to do together, he would be disinterested the entire time or just cancel and make plans with his friends instead. and of course it was all my fault for one, flirting with his friend that one time, and two, just not being interesting enough. he made it feel like i wasn’t good enough, and at the same time victimized himself. he would tell me “nothing i do is ever good enough for you” while i was the one putting in all the effort in the relationship. then he would go “well why would i put in effort with you? remember when you were flirting with [redacted]? I still think about that and it fucks me up”. mind you, he would only bring this up whenever i brought up any concerns or issues. anyway, as you can tell it took me a really long time to realize that this relationship was toxic and unhealthy and i’m really proud of myself, again, for having the strength to leave and never look back. i think one of the reasons why it took me so long to realize that i was being mistreated was because everyone around him loved him. and to me it was hard to see how someone that was so well liked could be bad. so i felt like i was the problem. i felt like there was something wrong with me and if i just fixed that, then he would treat me better and love me and care about me. it took a lot of therapy to realize that he just wasn’t that into me. i was like a toy to him that he could just pay attention to when he was bored but ignore me the rest of the time. but then, when someone else showed interest in me he would suddenly care and be like “no she’s mine, you can’t have her”. he didn’t want me but he didn’t want anyone else to have me and that was the bottom line. that was the base off all the problems and toxicity that happened while we were together.

in conclusion, both of these men were awful in their own unique ways. i hope that by sharing this, someone who is in a similar situation will see it and identify these behaviors as something to watch out for. i hope that someone will see it and realize that they are not alone, and that they are not the first person to go through it, and that it gets better. these events all happened over two years ago and now i am in a beautiful and healthy relationship, i’m studying something that i am passionate about, and i am surrounded by people who love, care about, and support me. i am in a much happier place now and you will find that too, whoever you might be <3

#andianswers #i might’ve given myself a migraine with this one

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