"Be Kind, For Everyone You Meet is Fighting a Hard Battle."

Why would I let someone treat me like that?

This question has haunted me. The answer is complex and multi-layered. It was ugly and difficult to start probing this question, which could only begin in any sincerity after I had left the situation I was in. I had to be more physically and mentally safe to explore. I had to be out of the confusion, uncertainty, and manipulated reality.

It is easy to land in shame, and self-blame for choosing this partner and staying.

Now I'd like to make an important point. I have discovered that I am not special. I am not especially fucked up, flawed or insecure. Most of the people I talk to are hounded by their own self doubt, shame and worries for their success, families, happiness, and self fulfillment.

What I didn't know when I met Todd, is that even if I think some of those nasty thoughts about myself, it doesn't make it okay for someone else to say them to me. Especially someone who loves me and is so close. It wasn't alright to have someone use those insecurities to manipulate me.

During our relationship, I developed a coping mechanism of beating myself up mentally before he did. I could actually hear his voice in my head. The line between his voice and mine was blurred. I would shame myself for being 'stupid' and 'fucking things up'. I was doing this or that wrong, I didn't think about this or that in the right way etc. The unconscious rationale behind this coping mechanism is that I had at least some control if I got to me first. Maybe somehow I would be more prepared for the hurtfulness of hearing it from him.

My insecurities have not just up and disappeared now that I am on my own. And that's actually alright. It's okay and it's normal to have them. It's normal, great even, to learn how to cope with them. Face the fears and ask them questions. Find healthy mechanisms to cope. The work is never done. It is a process.

The following is a list of the primary consequences of verbal abuse.
1. A distrust of her spontaneity.
2. A loss of enthusiasm.
3. A prepared, on-guard state.
4. An uncertainty about how she is coming across.
5. A concern that something is wrong with her.
6. An inclination to soul-searching and reviewing incidents with the hope of determining what went wrong.
7. A loss of self-confidence.
8. A growing self-doubt.
9. An internalized "critical voice."
10. A concern that she isn't happier and ought to be.
11. An anxiety or fear of being crazy.
12. A sense that time is passing and she's missing something.
13. A desire not to be the way she is - "too sensitive," etc.
14. A hesitancy to accept her perceptions.
15. A reluctance to come to conclusions.
16. A desire to escape or run away.
17. A belief that what she does best may be what she does worst.
18. A tendency to live in the future - "Everything will be great when/after..."
19. A distrust of future relationships.

(source. The Verbally Abusive Relationship: How to recognize it and how to respond written by Patricia Evans)