Ugh. My head is currently hanging low in intense shame, but fear not it becomes a very positive story.
I started dating my ex boyfriend around Christmas 2018. 6 months in, his bipolar 2 and narcissistic personality disorder started to rear it's ugly head. Prior to this he had little snippets of ornery reactions to things i thought were insignificant, but as we started dating longer and I actually moved in with him (2 months in? I thought I was special but now its just a red flag...) I started noticing more and more how he neglected his dog, family, and surroundings. At first I was very gentle. He was a remote worker so he had an extremely flexible schedule during the day, but somehow couldn't find time to walk his dog. Ever. It existed in a 12'x12' foot space for basically 24 hours a day, only going outside for a few minutes to pee. It displayed tons of neurotic behaviors, including very destructive ones like scratching walls, windows, doors, peeing on things like the pillows and mattress because he wasn't fixed. His bed was actually stained with how much this dog peed on it. As time went on I wisened up, his dog was a hell-beast...but because he was in psychological distress. So my frustration turned from the dog, to calling him out for his neglect.
I didn't know it at the time, but narcissists don't take well to having their illusion of perfection shattered. I think I have a streak in me of being stubborn, but I am not mean, cruel, harsh...I came to him with these things with concern that turned to frustration over time. The excuses rolled in. His reason for not walking the dog? He grew up poor and I did too, but I can't understand what it's like to be him because I have more money now and his mom had debt collectors calling constantly. It literally made no fucking sense as to why he couldn't take 30 minutes out of his day, in the morning and night as the dog's vet told us to do with all his behavioral issues. But it made me feel like shit about myself, like I was incredibly ignorant to how poverty can shape a person...even though I came from poverty myself. I actually started crying and apologizing for my ignorance and felt SO guilty for making him cry.
This is how he ensnared me. From here on out, ANY attempt to hold him accountable for abusive or mean behavior was turned on me. It was my fault he slapped me, he lied to me and told me he had consulted his friends on what he did and the consensus was that I had a victim complex. I started crying and apologized to him for making him do that in 'self defense' as he put it. What had happened was he put his finger in my mouth to touch his tongue and I playfully chomped down on his finger, but he saw red and recoiled, shouted "WHAT THE FUCK" over and over and after a few seconds of thinking about it, slapped me as hard as he could. Asking him about it later (was too scared to escalate in the moment) he said that i hurt him and it was in self defense that he hit me. As soon as he got hurt it ceased to be play and it was a violent act on my part. It was unnatural for me to cower in fear after someone hurts them. I needed to go to a therapist to work on these issues within me.
He told me he spoke with his therapist about me for 10 minutes (because he didnt want to spend the money talking about me in his sessions, he made sure to let me know this) and the therapist was very curious about how abusive i sounded apparently? According to him, she said i had a victim complex and was manipulative? It was such a mindfuck. He ended up leaving me on discord (maybe someone remembers that from my last post 6 months ago) because i put his/our dog on fluxotine to help him deal with being in the room all day doing absolutely nothing and having no interaction except being told to stop screaming or go outside and pee. He spent $300 on blood/urine work to get the okay to continue the meds which helped him alot. The next day he couldn't be bothered to give the dog the pills anymore, after just having spent the money. I called him out on it, saying that he had to walk the dog or the alternative was this medicine to keep him sane. He told me to get the fuck out of his house for being disrespectful. So i went home. I didnt talk to him that day because i figured that was it. He left me on discord the next day with a simple "We are no longer compatible" message. I felt so guilty for my 'approach', which in hindsight was frustration but not disrespectful or mean. He had just spent 300 the day before and was just too lazy to give the dog the pills. It had nothing to do with him being against the pills at all.
This was the cycle - I hold him accountable for something, he gets ENRAGED and blames me for it or denies ever doing it, discards me, goes on dating websites, realizes he couldn't find a new supply immediately and would suck me back in with guilt.
My weight fluctuated WILDLY. He had some control issues over food - he wouldn't eat eggs, cheese, sandwiches if the ingredients were touching, would only eat food if it was perfectly prepared, would never help me pick recipes but would always have some 'preference' when i made things. I got tired of making food to have it wasted and we ended up eating out 3 times a day. It cost SO much money, and the gaps where we were together i gained significant weight. Then he'd discard me, and i'd lose alot from both stress and not going out. He continued to gain though. When we met he had a slight dad bod, but over time his physique changed to that of a pregnant lady due to his eating habits.
The cycle repeated itself 3 times. Each time i got more hesitant to return to him but he had a way of making me feel responsible for his mistakes and i bought into his crocodile tears, i had alot of empathy for his background. His bipolar fits got significantly more extreme. He never walked his dog regularly even though i'd been poking and prodding for a year. We had a sit down where we were discussing issues because he finally went to see a psychiatrist for his bipolar. The subject of the dog came up again as an issue that still bothered me; If he neglects his dog, he will neglect me, his kids...anything that relies on him. I was very calm. I didn't even want to say it, but he encouraged me to talk about it because he wanted to bring it up at his appointment. Game. Over.
He started telling me I was mean, and i stood my ground and said I wasn't. I was holding him accountable for his dog. He started growling, literally, that I was so mean, but he knew I wasn't being mean, but that I was just 'so fucking mean'. I defended myself by saying "I am not mean". There was no raised voice on my end, no name calling, no shaming. But he could NOT handle this. He literally grabbed his hair and ripped out chunks of it, and started body slamming and attacking my bed with what i can only describe are demon growls and yelling.
It was the most disturbing thing i've ever seen someone do around me, and i've had my anxiety attacks over the years. He called this a panic attack, but it was just an attempt to diminish what it really was - a psychotic fit. I left the room because he was continuing for a bit and i considered calling the police, but was worried about escalating things further and just called my mom who came over and helped calmly escort him out. He sent me a barrage of texts saying how "You're gonna tell people tomorrow that you asked me to walk my dog and this happened but what really happened is you broke my mental state and you lit my fuse on purpose" and just...not a modicum of responsibility over his own actions.
From here things crumbled, culminating in a fake suicide threat where i DID call the cops because he said he wanted to die and not be alive. He told me if i ever did that again, he'd never forgive me for deferring him to other people and making his situation worse. He told me his social worker (he had rage quit his job 3 months prior and was out of money) was very concerned about how i handled things with him, everyone thought i was so fucked up for not coming over (I had no car, was in work meetings, and had called his grandma who he lived with to go physically check him out and confirm he was fine since i could not be there, and on her suggestion i called his psychiatrist).
It was really fucking manipulative, and to the point where even under his narcissistic spell, after all his gaslighting and fragmenting me to bits, i was like 'bullshit anyone actually said that'. I actually called his buddies to rally the troops to support him in this state and make him feel loved, and they admitted that after a year they didnt know i was dating him. They didnt really hear about me. Wtf? They also had no idea he hit me, even though he said they didnt like me. It was an eye opener for sure. So i left him. I actually did it this time!!! Of course he tried to spin it that i was leaving him in his lowest point, he wished i could be there to help him out (but just moments prior he was telling me this was all melodrama and i had no business calling professionals?) and that i was cruel. Pound sand dude.
The next day he put himself on OKcupid and started dating another girl. I don't know what they're up to now, i don't speak to him or check up on him. He hoovered me back in and i accepted, but he didn't stop seeing that other girl and i confronted him on it with irrefutable evidence that he was lying and two timing both of us. He got so enraged that he told me to never contact him again, and here i am now.
Throughout this roller-coaster, i gained tons of weight. The stress of managing his emotions, my shattered self esteem, my understanding of reality being manipulated to whatever suited him...In retrospect this is all so clearly abusive and manipulative, but being IN it and experiencing it at the time...when someone lies to you so confidently, it makes you question yourself. I feel such a deep sense of shame for letting someone treat me like that, and i feel incredibly stupid for allowing him to do all of this, and worst of all...letting it affect my mental health, and physical health.
So...THE GOOD PART!
It's been 3 weeks or so since i've spoken with him, and i've lost 10 FUCKING KG already. I am 5'2" so that is pretty significant. I actually weigh less than I did in highschool! The smallest in my adult life....ever! The last few months i was with him, i was regularly attending therapy, and after his final discard I have been attending twice a week and the stress has just...evaporated.
Therapy helped me alot to grow a spine and stand up to him and resist his mind games, hence our increased feuding. It's been a journey and we're starting to connect to how my need for comfort after a rough childhood of abuse and neglect manifests in different ways across my life. My weight issues were just me wearing my internal struggles, and food provided a morsel of comfort i couldn't find elsewhere. I ended up with him and dealt with him because he and my mom were essentially the same people in how they treated me, and there was a certain 'comfort' in that. I think alot of people's issues with food revolve around childhood traumas that have been unresolved, though that isn't to blame them or I for what we've endured. I remember watching "My 600lb Life" and me and my friend remarked how almost all of the people on the show were victims of childhood molestation or extreme abandonment.
For freedom units, I went from 155-ish lbs to 136 in about 4 weeks, as of today. I have NOT been starving myself. I have NOT been actively trying to, either. I simply got a good routine going, stability has returned to my daily life, i am doing great at work, and i eat to live vs eating because im stressed and want something tasty to make me feel temporarily fulfilled. My mom has extreme weight issues from self loathing and lack of self control, and she's actually been hostile in the past to weight loss attempts because she would take it as a personal attack that i wanted to work on my weight. The mindfuck was that she'd attack me for my weight though. Therapy to learn how to deal with him was a double whammy because it inadvertently taught me how to stand up to my mom, and lately i have been eating significantly less because i dont want to eat more. I dont feel scared to tell her i'm not going to eat her extravagant meals and will opt for something better. I just...can't describe the feeling of having control over oneself entirely. I'm technically no longer in an overweight BMI, but i know i can drop more BF%. I'm not focusing on it though, my habits have been changing alot and i think i'll just see where i end up and when i stall or no longer see progress i'll re-evaluate.
With all this said, this is an apology for posting 6 months ago seeking sympathy for my situation and support...only to go back multiple times. It's exhausting to be in an abusive relationship, it's exhausting to see your friends in these situations and wonder "God why wont they just leave". I promise i took what everyone said to heart, i sincerely do. There was a point where i was convinced that the abuse i was enduring was actually me doing things to him and i think i had no grip on reality anymore. I'm grounded once more, i can't wait to remain active on here and help others like i have been helped before.
There's also a small petty part of me that's happy to be looking my best while this abusive troglodyte gains more and more weight. I'll grow up someday and have more empathy for his mental health issues, but...not today lol.
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from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/2T1zLei
