Readers are advised to continue at their own discretion and heed trigger warnings. You feel at peace in the water even though you know you need to breathe as the water pressure is pushing against your head and inside your ears. This kind of numb pressure is how it feels in my head every single time I think about my relationship. We have an image of an older, violent man, beating a younger, helpless woman. But much like sexual assault and mental health problems, being in an abusive relationship can happen to anyone.
Luckily, once you are confident in recognising and walking away from them with your head held high, you can put chances on your side. Abuse takes many different forms, but the most common are sexual, physical, verbal and emotional. Despite this, emotional abuse is actually the most common. Emotional abuse is sneaky because it catches up on you and clouds your better judgement.
I was smart, hardworking and down to earth, so never in my wildest dreams did I think something like this would happen to me. Spoiler, though: you still have the strength to get out. The biggest step is deciding that you want to. You never would have before you met them, you would have ignored it because you would have known how far it was from the truth. The easiest way to describe an abusive relationship is therefore as a monster.
Much like a mythical hydra a creature with many heads that only increase it can feel like addressing one problem will only spark two others, and this is in fact what stops many women, like me, from reporting this to an authority, be that the school, your parents, their parents, or the police. Imagine if every head of this monster seemed like something innocent and appealing. Every single toxic trait and disrespectful attitude is its own battle to discover and ultimately tackle.
It even takes months to recognise, and even when when, not if you find the courage and self-respect to leave the relationship and find safety, you might start to doubt yourself and even want to go back. I was only in this relationship for 4 months, but nothing has ever felt longer. Something as simple as an inspirational speech will bring back every time that I hid my emotions or pushed them down and it all comes gushing out.
