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#recovering from abuse

performing-personhood · 2 months

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I learned a kind of funny thing and I need to tell you bc it's important, cmere. Lean in so the others can't hear okay?

Ok so like

I know that the reason we are the way we are is because at some point we took up some space - as people do - and someone turned to us and went "whoa, excuse you! What do you think you're doing" or something, right? And they were, like, surprised and offended that we took up space and told us to stay real small and subservient? And we were pretty young, you and me, and we didn't really grok Peopling yet and so we assumed that everyone else was going to have that expectation too?

Okay I just learned: that isn't true at all, that person was just an asshole.

Babe. BABE. This is big.

Ok do you realize ??? that most people when they're around someone - anyone, this is important, it's an unconscious reflex and happens rather automatically - and that person is like "I have an opinion and desires and also some needs and I am going to express them openly" Did you realize, because I didn't, that most people completely intuitively go "oh! There's another person here! Lemme just scootch over so they fit better :)" PEOPLE MAKE ROOM FOR YOU.

People don't ignore us, when we're silently having wants and needs and waiting our turn to be noticed, they just have similar very loud brains and have no idea because beung corporeal is Distracting™️. Not only do people just need a reminder that you're there, they're totally happy to accomodate. In a distinctly "ope! My bad, lemme just- here-" sort of way.

My spouse has a loud brain and drowns it out with Mario Kart. I've spent most of my life quietly entertaining myself in all of these instances, because at some point someone told me I was supposed to "go play" and nobody wanted to play with me so I entertained myself right? Okay. Well I recently had a sea change and decided I was gonna pop my headphones in and watch TV on my tablet when he was doing his Mario Karting. Because the boy will easily go for four hours and I just spontaneously realized that it would actually be ridiculous if he got butthurt at me for putting some quiet tv on for myself instead of watching a grown man play the same video game for hours.

You know what happened? Not only did nobody's feelings get hurt, but I have never made it more than twenty minutes into a show before he ends a match and switches the console off. And I have never asked him to do so. When I'm over there doing my own thing with my own TV show like a person instead of just scrolling on my phone trying real hard not to exist, somewhere in his unconscious he goes "there's a whole other human being on the other end of the sofa from me. I want to turn this off and engage with that person!"

Okay do you understand what I am telling you??

When you behave like a human person and treat yourself like a human person, other people also instinctively treat you like a human person and they're happy to be reminded that they get to engage with you. The person in our past that reacted differently and got mad at us for being a person, plainly and simply: they were just being an asshole to us.

The people we love want to engage with us. Almost all of them!!! And not only that?? Most other human beings feel the same way.

Huge. Big huge.

Don't take my word for it baby cakes okay, take a sec and muster up the courage (it'll be scary the first time, but the thinking about it is always scarier than doing it I swear) and then get back out there and practice being your very own human person occupying human people space, around someone who loves you, and just... watch what happens. The first time someone warmly, graciously, voluntarily accommodates you is the greatest feeling a corporeal being can experience, and you deserve it too.

#recovering people pleaser #recovering from abuse #recovering from trauma #recovering codependent #recovering from cptsd #cptsd recovery #actually cptsd #just neurodivergent things #actually neurodivergent #mental illness #things I learned in therapy #therapy works

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furiousgoldfish · 1 year

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Abuse is so over-stimulating for the brain, after you've been thru it long term, small stimulation that would usually change someone's mood or at least peak their interest, just doesn't feel like anything. Your brain keeps inventing extreme things like it wants them to happen and it's just because it's so used to overstimulation that it's now craving it in order to give you bits of relief and engagement.

It's just so damn draining to live like that. Having to keep ignoring that craving and worrying you'll give into it or feeling bad for the craving in the first place. Having weird impulses or fantasies and having to keep quiet so people don't get freaked out. And it's literally because of nothing you did. It's just because the aftermath of abuse is hell on earth.

#it can get better #but i never managed to figure some things out #and my brain is still running on wanting overstimulation #but its also possibly because i give it no stimulation whatsoever #that its being like this #aftermath of abuse #aftermath of trauma #long term abuse #overstimulation #recovering from abuse #abuse recovery

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moonlit-positivity · 3 months

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Overheard in therapy: you do NOT have to be happy all the time. You are absolutely allowed to wake up and say, "damn, this actually sucks and today Im gonna be mad about it." We do not have to keep manifesting a mindset of toxic positivity without acknowledging the hardships and all the ways that life has drained our soul. Yes, absolutely, be mad about it. It will help!

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diaryofanenchantedprincess · 27 days

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I was thinking about the “grass is greener on the other side” metaphor and it led me to this thought that we’re all just empty fields.

We start out with fertile ground. We have parents that might plant different seeds. They might have planted seeds of a secure attachment style. They might have planted seeds of an interest and an appreciation for the arts and culture. Seeds that fill our ground with various skills.

On the other hand, you have parents who plant weeds that refuse to let anything else grow to fruition. So now you go out and find different seeds that you want and even though you work so hard to tend to them, you still end up with these weeds that pop up and take up space. Valuable space that needs to be filled with plants that sustain you and flowers of hobbies that bring you joy.

Now you spend all your time plucking out weeds and barely surviving with the few plants that you do have. By the time you clear the field at the end of the day, new ones pop up the next day because sometimes the roots have gotten really deep over the years.

You can use weed killers. They take out the weeds, but they take away nourishment from the soil too. That piece of fertile land is barely holding on. It can barely sustain itself, let alone a whole garden.

You watch other people’s gardens thrive and some of them will even go as far as to say “just plant new seeds!”

But where will the energy come from? You’ve already spent so much of it killing the weeds. You’ve spent so much of it trying to keep the soil alive. You’ve spent so much of it trying to keep yourself alive.

More than that, those people had an advantage over you. They never had their fields overrun with weeds. While you were spending all your energy adapting and surviving, they spent all theirs growing and developing and flourishing with so much more left over.

So now you’re sitting there in an empty field, finding the energy to start over while others are harvesting theirs. You may feel behind but remember that you were doing your best to survive.

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mysticpurinsblog · 24 days

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learning that recovery is different for everyone has been a hard path. i thought i had to ignore all my disordered habits until they disappeared, but obviously they didn't, so i relapsed again and again.

then i started reading about addiction and how a psych team works with those kinds of patients, and i started to use that knowledge into my own recovery.

i will forever be addicted to starving. there will not be a day in my life in which i wake up and not think about my eating disorder, not think about weight loss nor counting calories.

however, i know the damage it made to myself, my body, and the ones i love. so i know i must stop one day at a time.

since i learned that i started being more compassionate to myself. started understanding that i had the habit of making those weight loss plans, the habit of counting calories, and that stuff. and that can't change fast. and it's alright.

i allow myself to count calories if i want to, i just try to keep them into a healthy amount, that's enough for me and my body. If i have a rough day, i can also make those weight loss plans i used to, i just don't force myself to follow them.

i found my eating disorder was rooted in trauma, and my ocd has much to do with it. so when i am triggered about daily life stuff, or i feel anxious, i find myself returning to this habit.

it's not easy to stop acting like you hate yourself when it's all you learned. it's alright. it will pass. just be compassionate and understanding. ed are also addictions, and it's not easy to battle it

#recovery #ed recovery #recovering from abuse #recovering from trauma #compassionate reminders #positive thoughts #positivity #mental health #mental illness

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mizusjawline · 1 month

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The amount of money it takes to buy your freedom

I've been researching child abuse for over half a year now and I've seen posts on almost every aspect of the topic. However, so far I have yet to see a post discussing the financial problems we face. Escaping from an abusive family is goddarn expensive:

Bad financial role models. Coming from an abusive family, our parents views on many things were warped af! You can bet their views on finances were also warped and unrealistic! So we need to learn our financial skills from scratch. Learning is only if possible if you can allow for trial and error. Financial errors can sometimes be very, very expensive.

Moving into your own apartment. Escaping from an abusive family is nigh on impossible if you're still living with said family. However, living spaces are expensive! And for some of us, escaping our abusive family situation comes at the price of homelessness.

No financial safety net. Maybe our parents were too ill or addicted to work a steady job. Maybe our parents have the means to financially support us but choose not to in order to 'punish' us for escaping. Maybe our parents actively used money as a means to control us. Either way, when things get tough, we cannot rely on them for financial aid. This sorta feeds back into the first point about expensive trial and error learning. Sure, we can learn by trial and error. But when we make an error, there is no safety net to support us.

Being able to afford nice things is a necessity for survival. I have yet to meet a child abuse survivor who is not a hedonist. I think that being able to fill your life with nice things is vital for surviving the torturous emotional rollercoaster that is escaping from an abusive family. And sometimes, having a vase of flowers on the table can spell the difference between an emotional breakdown and an Emotional Breakdown. However how are you gonna afford these things if your paycheck only covers the bare minimum for survival (roof over your head, food, ect.)?

Some of us can't work a job. We are all severely disabled by mental health problems as a consequence of our parent's abuse. And sometimes that hinders us from working a job and earning a steady income. What happens if we have no financial buffer to fall back on during those times? Also, again, our parents did not serve as reliable rolemodels. Learning to work a steady job is, again, trial and error learning for most of us.

Therapy, medical attention and diagnoses are expensive. Some of us are lucky enough to live in countries where this is less of an issue. And some of us are unfortunate and live in countries where this is a big issue. A full escape from an abusive family is nigh on impossible without therapy.

Sometimes escaping from an abusive family strikes me as a privilege for the upper class. And this pisses me off to no end. For us child abuse victims, freedom comes with a price tag attached and it is BIG. I live in a society where slavery is illegal and a human life is not supposed to have a monetary value. And yet here I am, watching my bank account balance and wondering if it'll be enough to buy myself my freedom.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

#tw child abuse #child abuse survivor #tw financial issues #cptsd #actually cptsd #recovering from abuse #child abuse recovery #child abuse awareness

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booburry · 5 months

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To the Death of Our Relationship / A poem

I will not miss you.

I will not miss your false signals of love,

Nor your empty words that came with.

I will not miss your untempered emotions,

Nor the expectation to bear them in silence.

I will not miss it.

I will not miss the painful nights,

Nor the cold and distant days.

I will not miss the feeling of dread,

Nor the fear that haunted me.

I will relish in this passing.

I will relish in my newly claimed freedom,

And the strength it will bring.

I will relish in the rediscovery of myself,

And embracing that self in love and acceptance.

I will cherish what I have learnt.

I will cherish the growth this has given me,

And that stability it will provide me forward.

I will cherish that you saved me when we met,

And I will forever be grateful for that.

But I will not miss you.

Nor the anger.

Nor the manipulation.

Nor the abuse.

Nor the neglect.

I will not miss it,

For I will dance in the ashes of what has burnt.

#poetry #poems and poetry #original poem #poems on tumblr #recovering from abuse #I finally managed to get the strength to leave him #and I may be scared #but I am mostly excited for the life ahead of me #of realizing how I had lost myself to fit the mold he wanted #and I normally never write poetry #but I felt inspired and am in love with this piece #and I hope that it can atleast resonate for someone #personal #Booburry Writes

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accidentalslayer · 8 months

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I hope the ghost of my boomer grandfather is seeing me:

▪︎ writing fanfiction

▪︎ doing art

▪︎ practicing witchcraft

▪︎ watching all the foreign films

With his jaw tight, fists clenched at his sides & and the sick feeling in his stomach that I, in the very end, did not let him stop me from being a whimsical little shit who experiences joy.

#🎃 accidentalslayer 🎃#generational trauma #boomer #recovering from abuse #being whimsical and full of joy in defiance of greyface #greyface #i wish all abusers a very fuck you

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returning-to-her · 3 months

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I will be doing a reading from this book on my next matriarchal sermon. It has me thinking a lot about trauma, women, and the deep wound of a harmful mother. The chapter I will be reading talks about that. I find it so complex that I'm re-reading it now. This book deserves a conversation.

Should I attempt a live reading? Anyone interested in attending?

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furiousgoldfish · 1 year

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Starting to see that it's actually very normal for the abused kids to get themselves in sort of, bad situations in real life, and then just slowly progress to less-bad, and less-bad, until it gets to a place where we feel comfortable, or at least we're able to hold on without having a crisis.

This doesn't happen because as an abused kid, you're now doomed or attract toxic people, those are just myths. It is true that we will easily tie several bad things that have happened to us together, and decide that it's a proof that things will always be bad for us, and that isn't true either, bad things actually do happen to everyone. With us, it just hits worse, feels worse, triggers us and forces us to re-live everything else bad that has happened, and creates more ominous symbolism. We're also unlikely to receive comfort, so we're always in our bad situations alone and feel abandoned. That is enough to make anyone despair.

But there is a timeline with a fairly slow progression from 'abuse' to 'less abuse' to 'healthier environment'. I don't think I know any cases where a person went from abuse to 'safe and loved for eternity', and it has to do with how we view the world, and how everything we learn is relative to each other.

For instance, after running away from abusive parents, I spent a long time being just extremely grateful that I'm not in physical danger anymore, and that nobody is yelling at me. There were several injustices happening to me, I was financially exploited despite being in severe poverty, I accidentally associated myself with people who exploited my labour and did some extremely sick things to me, but how would I notice? I was busy feeling grateful for not being assaulted. You can't tell someone who just got out of hell 'hey, this is bad too, actually', because what they're seeing is 'this is so much better than hell, this is the best situation I've ever been in, I'm so grateful this isn't worse, this level of injustice is nothing.'

But, to a person who hasn't experienced severe abuse or injustice, it wouldn't be 'nothing', it would be stuff worth calling the police over.

We just can't see it because, relatively to our life, this is the best we ever experienced, and whatever bad things are happening, are usually detected as 'minor' and ignorable'. This is likely to get us into several bad situations, but it's also inevitable, we can't quickly jump from abuse to healthy. It takes some layers of bad for us to notice that we could actually, do better. Sometimes the bad situations turn into worse, and then we realize it's actually bad and triggering, and we get out. Sometimes, bad people go away all on their own, and we realize then, that we're happier.

The good news is, that after getting away from the worst of the abuse, we often will feel like 'this is the most freedom I ever had, this is the best I was ever treated, this is the most love I've ever gotten, I'm so grateful this is better than before', and that is a good thing to experience. Bad thing about it is that often sometimes later, we will go 'oh. that actually was bad and I couldn't tell.' but the point is, you're smarter now, and you'll realize it next time, and slowly you'll always keep going toward better and better life situations.

I'm writing this to let you know it happens to everyone else too. We all go thru some level of additional messes and we don't see them as messes, we only realize it in retrospect. So don't blame yourself if you don't know how exactly to put yourself in a good situation after you've experienced so few of them! It might be a rocky road, but it won't feel like one, not until you look back. You're always moving forward, and every single thing you didn't realize at the time, that it was bad, is generally how we all move forward and learn about these things. You can't know it all at once.

#escaping abuse #abuse aftermath #child abuse #abusive parents #trauma recovery #abuse recovery #recovering from abuse #going from worst to bad to better to good

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laikacore · 6 months

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my eve has been replaced

a sunset over a garden

somewhere far away

from the circling vultures.

where marble statues

pluck harp strings, yes

where there's a flower growing

that's ever facing the sun.

maybe it's a good thing

i left the door unlocked

maybe it's a good thing

the bird killed the snake.

in this garden

i'll sit among company

with my loves,

and together we'll eat applesauce.

the garden of eden by laika wallace

#lgbt love poem #t4t love poetry #love poem #recovering from abuse #life after abuse #healing poetry

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mizusjawline · 29 days

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Just realised that I've never lived together with other people in a non abusive context. My family is dysfunctional af. And in the psych ward we bullied and abused each other because we were injured animals desperate for survival.

No wonder living with a flatmate for the first time has my nerves on fukking edge. This might be my first experience of healthy coexistence. Brand new emotional territory.

#tw child abuse #recovering from abuse #child abuse survivor #child abuse recovery

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ember-the-survivor · 3 months

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Oliver Graves Is a Narcissistic Abuser Who Sexually Assaulted Me

In the spring of this year, I briefly dated the comedian Oliver Graves. During the course of the relationship, I was subject to constant criticism and cruelty, financial exploitation, gaslighting, emotional/mental abuse, and two different acts of sexual assault.

I also learned that Oliver Graves is a racist who uses the N-word, a misogynist who speaks ill of most women and uses charged language to describe them, and a transphobe who misgendered his nonbinary ex and insisted their identity was illegitimate, artificial, or merely a response to childhood trauma.

I was not going to publicly speak out against him or seek any sort justice, even though his actions warranted it. Why? Because I am scared of him. His previous ex — the one he misgendered and mocked to me, whilst also inappropriately sharing their personal childhood trauma — had spoken out against him and accused him of narcissistic abuse. He had retaliated against them by using DARVO tactics. It seemed to work, successfully silencing them. When I met him, he continued to claim that this ex was the actual abuser in the relationship. But having experienced his abuse first-hand, I fully believe his ex was telling the truth and I can attest that he is, in fact, a narcissistic abuser.

After what he did to his ex, I am frightened to speak out. This man knows my address. He had previously ‘joked’ to me about going to the house of one of his other exes and playing a cruel prank on her simply because she suffered from mental illness and had ‘led him on’/been a ‘tease.’ I am genuinely scared that he might hurt me, especially considering he has shown himself to be combative and abusive, and he is 6’6. I also worry about him encouraging his fanbase to attack and bully me, which is what he seems to have done to the ex who previously spoke out against him.

Nonetheless, I feel I must share this story because he has chosen to speak publicly about me via a YouTube video, which was riddled with falsehoods, inaccuracies, extreme exaggerations, half-truths, glaring omissions, and outright lies. The video was a prime example of DARVO. Now I want to set the record straight.

(Side note: I encourage you not to watch the video, or any of his videos. But if you’re going to, I suggest viewing it on yewtu.be instead. That way, he won’t get any views from it.)

I met him on a dating app. He was lying about his age and pretending to be in his early thirties. I’m in my early twenties. After we got together, he revealed that he lied about his age. If you Google him, you’ll find the birth date of 13 April 1990, but that is just a random day he chose for the ‘character’ of Oliver Graves. In actuality, he’s in his late 30s. I never did learn his actual age because he was continually cagey about it and dodged the question, claiming he ‘couldn’t remember,’ but he seems to be between the ages of 37 and 39.

Again: I am in my early 20s. Prior to dating him, I had no relationship or sexual experience. I had no frame of reference for any of it. He knew this and exploited it.

He also gave me a fake name twice. It took him a while to finally tell me his real first name, and much longer to reveal his surname. Meanwhile, I was open and honest with him about my full legal name. The only thing I ever lied about was my address, and I only did that because I was advised by friends/family not to tell anonymous men on dating apps my real address until I got to know them. Once I felt I knew him well enough, I immediately came clean, told him where I actually lived and explained my reasoning. His claim in the video that I was some sort of habitual liar is not only completely false (as you can see by the way he stumbles when trying to think of any examples of my ‘lies’), but is also a projection on his part. He is a constant liar. I will share more examples later on.

On our first date, when I was heavily intoxicated, he squeezed my thighs so hard that he left bruises. He did this in public, at a bar. Then, when I got into his car afterwards, he did not immediately take me home in spite of my intoxicated state. Instead, he drove to the parking lot of an empty park and pulled his penis out of his pants. I was encouraged to play with it. In my drunken state, I did not mind doing this. I thought he wanted a hand-job and I didn’t realize this was unusual behaviour because I was intoxicated and I had no prior dating/sexual experience. However, I did NOT want to perform oral sex. But that didn’t matter to him, because shortly after exposing himself to me, he grabbed the back of my head and forcefully pushed my face into his lap and my mouth onto his erection.

The entire time, I felt deeply uncomfortable. I remember staring out the car window and waiting for it to be over, wondering how I’d ended up in this situation. I blamed myself. At the time, I did not think of it as sexual assault because I had let him direct me to playing with his penis and had made out with him at the bar, so I thought I was at fault.

He used my mouth for a while before masturbating himself, at which point I made up an excuse so that he wouldn’t ejaculate in me or on me. That night, he didn’t. But the next date, he would.

Because I blamed myself and did not accept the reality of the sexual assault, I continued talking to him. I think a part of me wanted the relationship to work because I somehow thought that would make what happened to me OK. Make it seem better in hindsight.

Furthermore, I was led to believe that what had happened was no big deal because of the way he spoke about it. He joked about how he’d had to ‘shove my head down’ and that he hadn’t ‘given me a choice’ on whether or not to perform oral. He said these things as if they were funny, like what he did was one big joke and not an intentional act of assault. And he brought it up unprompted. His jokes, again, made me feel like I had said or done something that counted as consent.

The day after our first date, during a Discord call, he started to pick on me. He told me, at length, about other attractive people he’d dated or wanted to date, and insinuated he found them more desirable than me. By this point, he was aware of my insecurities, but he did not care. I don’t remember everything he said during the call, but I know that I left it feeling sick to my stomach. A day earlier, he’d sexually assaulted me, and now he was negging me and making me feel inferior/unattractive.

After he’d undermined my confidence and made me feel terrible about myself — like I wasn’t good enough or pretty enough, the very day after having been forced to blow him — I wrote him a message explaining how deeply hurt and insulted I was by the things he’d said. He responded by accusing me of acting like his ex (the one he claimed was abusive). He did not take responsibility, nor clarify his comments in a positive or meaningful way, nor apologise. At that point, I chose to break things off.

However, soon after, the weight of the sexual assault settled in. I needed to date him to make it OK. I needed to be on good terms with him so I didn’t have to reckon with the fact that I’d been victimised, that my first date — first kiss — first sexual experience had been with an abusive monster.

For these reasons, I went back to him. He didn’t apologise to me, but I apologised to him for having gotten upset over his remarks. I accepted his version of events: that I’d overreacted, that I’d been hysterical, that he’d done nothing wrong. It was easier to swallow those lies than to confront the truth.

He continued to say and do things that undermined my confidence, always taking a passive-aggressive approach that left me questioning myself, my sanity, my sensitivity. Was I overthinking? Was I taking offense where none was intended? Was it my own fault that my feelings were hurt? He had me conditioned to accept constant criticism and casual cruelty, and to gaslight myself into thinking it was normal and that I was the problem for getting upset.

One of the ways he did this was by letting me know, repeatedly, that my weight didn’t please him. Oliver Graves is a fat fetishist and, at the time we were dating, I weighed barely 120 lbs. He knew this before he started dating me — the first question he asked me on the dating app was about how thin I was — and yet he went out with me anyway. Why? Because he also had a feeder fetish. He made it clear that he wanted me to binge-eat an enormous amount of unhealthy foods while he watched in order to sate his fetish, and that the relationship might not work out if I didn’t rapidly gain weight — 100 lbs or more. He often spoke of the 300 lb person he’d slept with, like this was the ideal I should be aiming for. He didn’t care about my health, my body dysmorphia, my past issues with disordered eating. He just wanted me to satisfy his toxic fetishes, at the expense of my own physical and mental well-being.

Over time, I learned more about him and began to see what an awful person he truly was. In addition to bashing his ex and telling me all about their abusive childhood — information I should not have been privy to — he also bragged about using the N-word, and he said it whilst on a call with me. When I pushed back on this, he told me he was ‘allowed’ to use it because a few black comedians had told him he could. I don’t believe that story, first of all, but even if it’s true — which is a big if — black people are not a monolith, and ‘a couple black comics’ obviously does not equate to the entire black community.

He spoke ill of many women, both ones he dated or just encountered. He made strange, disconcerting comments about the age of consent. He repeatedly ‘joked’ that Mel B, one of the judges on America’s Got Talent during his season, was on drugs, and that Heidi Klum was too stupid to understand his humour. He did not, however, speak ill of either of the other judges, both of whom were men.

He frequently referred to women as bitches and he made comments about having an Asian and Latina fetish. As for his AFAB nonbinary ex, he fetishized their Asian ethnicity while also making derogatory comments about their appearance, comparing their face to that of an ugly dog, and saying that he did not believe they were truly nonbinary.

He insinuated he thought that the reason his ex used they/them pronouns was simply for attention or as a result of childhood trauma that ‘made [them] not want to be a girl’ — but he didn’t say ‘them,’ he misgendered the person instead.

He was also very manipulative. A prime example of this is how he would cry in order to get his way. Once, we were having a discussion about a movie. We disagreed on its meaning and the discussion soon turned to a debate. I kept a clear, calm head the entire time, but he became enraged when I did not agree with his interpretation.

He raised his voice and yelled at me, belittled and insulted me, repeatedly suggesting that my social skills were so terrible that it was like I’d never ‘spoken to another human being before’ (side note: he was aware my social skills were an insecurity of mine). Again: I never yelled back, never raised my voice, never said anything mean in return. The only thing I said, very calmly, was that he was hurting my feelings and I didn’t understand why he kept repeating the question ‘have you ever spoken to a human being before?’

Finally, when raging at me didn’t work, he burst into dramatic tears and told me the reason he was upset wasn’t because of the movie we were discussing but rather because of his comedy style and the fact that people delegitimised it. To be clear, we had never discussed his comedy style, performance, or career at any point during this conversation. I was blindsided so much that I initially thought he was joking. But then, by using his tears and talking about how no one believed in his comedy and ‘that’s what this is really about,’ he successfully manipulated me into soothing him and mindlessly agreeing with him and profusely apologising, even though I’d done nothing wrong and his emotional outburst had nothing to do with me.

He also financially exploited me. He insisted to me that he was broke, even though he was living comfortably with his parents and was being financially supported by them, and so I paid for everything on our dates and also sent him $150 over Venmo because he made his situation sound so dire. This was in spite of the fact that I was much younger and, during the time I was dating him, barely scraping by myself. He never thanked me for paying, nor did he thank me for the Venmo payment. He was so entitled that he seemed to just expect it from me. And what’s worse, after I paid for both our dates, he sexually assaulted me each time.

On our second date, we went to another bar and he insulted me, saying something about how he was attracted to mediocrity and that I was ‘an example of that.’ He then said this was ‘just a joke’ and even though it hurt me tremendously, I just swallowed the pain and said nothing.

Afterwards, when I was sufficiently intoxicated, he repeated the pattern of the first date. He took me to the same parking lot of the same deserted park and unzipped his pants. This time, not wanting him to force my head down again, I just wordlessly obeyed and performed oral sex. I tried to minimise it as much as possible by using my hand too. When he was getting close, I switched to my hand. But then he suddenly, without warning or asking for permission, grabbed the back of my head and again shoved my face into his lap. He forced my mouth on his penis while he ejaculated. I was so confused and sexually inexperienced that I didn’t even realise what was happening at first.

Again, I did not let myself accept that this was a violation. I told myself it was fine because I had willingly — or somewhat willingly — performed oral sex and masturbated him. Even though I felt filthy and horrible afterwards, I convinced myself that it was just me being overly sensitive yet again and that he’d done nothing wrong, just as I’d convinced myself so many times before.

Yet another pattern repeated itself the following day, when — just like our first date — he called me up to again say cruel things to me.

This time, instead of my appearance, he focused on a different insecurity: my belief that I was socially inept or clumsy. He told me everything I’d done wrong during our date, critiquing every minor interaction or mistake I’d made, criticising the way I’d interacted with him or others, going on at length about how stupid it was of me to briefly leave my purse by itself on our table while we were playing pool a few feet away. He tore me apart, knowing full well just how insecure I was about this topic, to the point where he actually made me cry.

Unlike him, I did not want to use my tears as a weapon or tool to manipulate, so once I felt myself on the verge of crying, I simply told him I had to go in a small voice, then hung up and cried alone in my bedroom whilst all his cruel words replayed in my head.

He was aware that I’d ended the call to cry in private and he criticised me for that too, saying that I should’ve stayed on the line. Once I’d collected myself, I wrote him a message explaining why what he said had hurt me so badly. He did not apologise. Instead, he doubled down on every comment he’d made.

After that, I was beginning to realise the gravity of our sexual encounters and my lack of agency or consent. Both times, he had taken me to somewhere I couldn’t flee, in the darkness and early hours of morning, trapped in his car with no one around to hear me if I cried out. The second time, I had worn tights under my dress just in case he tried to touch me or — worse yet — have sex with me, not having faith he’d ask for consent or listen if I said no.

As all of this was hitting me, the day after our second date, I left him a crying voice message where I confided that I felt disgusting and disgusted with myself for having been made to swallow his semen. I couldn’t shake the feeling of uncleanliness, no matter how many times I brushed my teeth or rinsed my mouth. I couldn’t even look at or touch my lips without being reminded of it and feeling that rush of shame all over again.

I told him I wanted to break things off. But then I was forced, yet again, to be alone with my thoughts and to reckon with what he’d done to me. It was too painful, I couldn’t bear it. He had also manipulated me into craving his approval so badly by denying it time and time again, and I still felt that after I broke up with him.

It was as if I had put so much time and effort into something — in this case, my attempt to be perfect for him no matter what it cost me — only to then destroy it. So I sought him out and pitifully begged to get back together, once again acting as if it was all my fault for being stupid and emotional and sensitive. He let me back into his life but made it clear he was not going to date me, at least not right away. He dangled the possibility of future romantic reconciliation as some far-off prize to be won, yet another thing I’d have to work for. But I accepted it, just as I accepted all of his bullshit, feeling like it was a punishment I deserved. He had me feeling so bad about myself that I even told him ‘if I were you, I wouldn’t date me either.’

Since we were — by his choice — broken up, I went out with someone else. I had mentioned the possibility that I might sleep with this person during our call, because I wanted to lose my virginity. What I didn’t say, and didn’t even fully realise until later, was that I was also desperate to have a sexual experience that was completely consensual and on my own terms. During our call, he joked about this with me and did not act jealous or bothered by it — which made sense, as he claimed he wanted us to just be friends in the meantime. I reiterated that I wanted to get back together whenever he deemed me worthy of it, but that it was fine, I could wait, thinking I’d just have casual flings in the meantime and that would satisfy us both. I was wrong.

When he didn’t hear from me the following night, he sent me a GIF of cartoon hands miming sex. The insinuation was clear and seemingly playful. We had ended the call on good terms and I thought we were friends working toward eventual reconciliation, but able to go out with other people in the meantime. That seemed to be what he wanted and I was eager to agree with his wants. But when I wrote him the following evening, letting him know I had slept with the guy but hadn’t really enjoyed the experience due to the pain and the fact that I was still hung up on him, his rage came back.

He told me off, saying he hoped the man didn’t like me and was just using me for sex, that this man — whom he didn’t know — ‘deserved better’ than me. Once again, I was devastated. But this, I decided, would be the last time.

I told him how hurtful his comments were, then blocked him on Discord and blocked his number. Later on, I’d remember the $150 I sent him on Venmo and feel a terrible regret, as that was money I couldn’t afford to spend and I was realising now that I had given it to an abuser. I requested on Venmo that he refund me. Instead, he blocked me. I ended up having to file a claim with Venmo to get the money back. Thankfully, they sided with me and refunded it.

After that, I just wanted to move on. I started dating the guy I’d slept with and I had a consensual sexual relationship with him until I ended it over the summer. That served as a good distraction for me, keeping my mind off Oliver Graves and all he’d put me through. It took me a while to come to grips with the abuse, the coercion, the sexual assault, but I got to a point where I felt relatively at peace. I didn’t want to pursue legal action because I had no physical evidence and I realise how badly the legal system treats victims of SA, and whilst I knew he deserved to be exposed, I feared retaliation and thus decided to keep myself safe by staying quiet.

But then I found out he posted that horrible YouTube video about me, wherein he tells such vicious lies and accuses me of the cruelty that he himself committed. I was shocked and appalled. After working so hard to move on with my life and get over the hell he had put me through, he had found another way to revictimise me. It felt immensely violating and incredibly mean. He said that I ‘needed to learn’ and that what I’d done was ‘wrong,’ making himself out to be the victim rather than the racist, transphobic, misogynistic, narcissistic abuser who had sexually assaulted me.

He also confidently declared that the only reason I’d slept with that other man was to make him jealous and provoke a reaction, which was absolutely not the case and never had been. However, it does seem that he chose to publicly upload this video to get a rise out of me: he mentioned the possibility of me seeing it many times, even bringing attention to the fact that he was leaving the comments on, implying that he was eager to see how I’d respond — and how much it would hurt me.

After watching it, my head was spinning. I felt sickened. I wrote him messages begging him to delete it, but he ignored me. I posted a short comment on the video about how he’d been abusive toward me — without providing specifics — and he deleted it. (I have since reposted it.) Due to the fact that he was ignoring my emails and I wanted to convince him to delete the video from his channel, I joined his public Discord server. I made no attempts to hide my identity, joining under the username Turner. I scrolled back to try to see if he’d shared any messages about me with his Discord clique, only to find yet another example of him lying and manipulating: he was using a sock-puppet account to compliment himself, posting in the server about how much he loved his own videos and promoting his works under the guise of being his own superfan. But I knew the account, called ‘Nova’ or ‘Novaray,’ belonged to him because it was the same Discord account he’d used to speak with me. In the face of this glaring example of narcissism and dishonesty, I couldn’t resist responding to three of his self-complimentary messages with a bit of snark, saying something about how ‘of course you’d like the video.’ I was immediately banned from his server.

He still hasn’t responded to my emails, and he still hasn’t taken down the video. I know he never will, just like he refused to refund the money I sent him on Venmo, because taking it down would be some form of accountability. Narcissistic abusers will never take accountability. They will never admit to their mistakes. They will never apologise. He could do the right thing, but that would require him to be a half-decent person, and this man, I’ve realised, is truly evil.

I’m writing this because I want to reclaim the narrative. I want to take back the voice he stole from me. I want to regain some of the agency that I lost during our relationship. I want to tell the truth. I reported the video to YouTube but I doubt they’ll take action, so all I can do is put out my story and hope it warns people to stay away from this man and not to support him in any way.

But I am worried. I am scared. He knows where I live and he has an unpredictable, frightening temper. He has a small but devoted fanbase. He’s a public figure, I am not. There’s a power imbalance at play here, which is exacerbated by the age gap between us. I fear retaliation. I fear that he will try to manipulate his fans into attacking me on his behalf, much like Colleen Ballinger did to Adam McIntyre in 2020. I fear that he will dox me. I fear that he might even try to physically harm me.

I won’t be frightened into silence, though. Not again. Not after he chose to make things public with that egregiously dishonest YouTube video — a textbook example of DARVO. And to Oliver, since I know you’re reading this: if you do anything with my private, personal information — if you leak anything revealing about me, if you attempt to dox me or otherwise punish me for speaking out and sharing my truth — I want you to know that I won’t hesitate to pursue legal action. I’ve been very careful to not use your name or reveal your identity in this piece, and you’re the one who chose to make our relationship public under your ‘Oliver Graves’ persona when you uploaded that video, so I have every right to respond and tell the truth of what really happened. But you do not have the right to attack me, dox me, bully me, or do anything else to harm me. Trust me, you’ve already hurt me enough. The damage has been done. If your goal was to cause me pain, which I believe it was, then you’ve ‘won.’ But I cannot and will not let you silence me or scare me into submission. People should know who you really are and what you’re capable of. Fuck you, Oliver Graves, and fuck all your fellow abusers too.

—

Update 15 October 2023: The YouTube video has now been removed.

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