Physical & Emotional Abuse Support Group
Abuse is a general term for the treatment of someone that causes some kind of harm (to the abused person, to the abusers themselves, or to someone else) that is unlawful or wrongful. No one deserves abuse, period. Abuse can be emotional, physical, or sexual.
I was in an emotionally abusive relationship for 15 years. I didn't even realize it while I was in it. I was in total denial. I knew I was unhappy, had panic attacks, insomnia, felt numb, trapped but I never connected the dots. It wasn't until I was out of the relationship and researching panic attacks that I clicked on a link about emotional abuse and realized they were describing my previous relationship almost to perfection.
I found a positive, supportive, relationship that has helped me a lot. However the last few years have been filled with some ups and downs. Since getting divorced I have had many accomplishments, I got a degree and am working on a second one, have held management positions, bought a house, I did things my ex had put in my mind I could never do-not without him giving me things I might want or need. But also there have been a couple of rough years.
My boyfriend's nephew was troubled and we were trying to help him, but when we decided we were enabling him and cut off the gravy train this nephew came in the dark of night, shut off the electricity to our house to lure my boyfriend outside to check the fuse box and stabbed him multiple times. He almost died. When my boyfriend went back to work at the state mental hospital 4 months later (probably too soon but we needed the money) he was assaulted by a patient at work and received a TBI. He has been in recovery ever since. At approximately the same time my daughter, who was a whiteness to this violent act at 15 started showing symptoms of a psychotic disorder and has been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. After constant hospitalizations and suicide attempts she is now 18 and stable but disabled.
From the time of the divorce from my ex I received constant harassment via text, email, vm. Calling me names, shouting, degrading my life choices (which are none of his business), my ability to handle our daughter (which is very difficult and he undermines everything I try to do to get her well-including her med compliance). I have consulted professionals who sometimes tell me to get a restraining order and sometimes tell me to seriously consider whether he would abide by a restraining order because in a small percentage of cases it makes it worse. This harassment has gone on for years, and whenever it occurs I am right back to being a victim in that relationship, all the same feelings, anxiety, depression, which I struggle with anyway day-to-day but usually can work through to function pretty well-until I get more unwanted communication from my ex. I feel like this is never going to end. I have so much on my plate already, and have overcome a lot, but whenever I get this harassment I feel inadequate I question everything about myself, I get confused and can't sort out my own feelings. Part of me wants to change my email address and phone number (can't move yet), but I'm scared of the though of not knowing if he's escalating, or what kind of harmful things he might be saying to our daughter. I do not have insurance coverage for counseling, I also already have a very full schedule with care-giving to two people with serious health issues, school, and work. I don't know what to do with these feelings, and not only are they very unpleasant I know they effect my ability to function at my best. I feel depressed, trapped, angry....I don't know what to do.
I found a positive, supportive, relationship that has helped me a lot. However the last few years have been filled with some ups and downs. Since getting divorced I have had many accomplishments, I got a degree and am working on a second one, have held management positions, bought a house, I did things my ex had put in my mind I could never do-not without him giving me things I might want or need. But also there have been a couple of rough years.
My boyfriend's nephew was troubled and we were trying to help him, but when we decided we were enabling him and cut off the gravy train this nephew came in the dark of night, shut off the electricity to our house to lure my boyfriend outside to check the fuse box and stabbed him multiple times. He almost died. When my boyfriend went back to work at the state mental hospital 4 months later (probably too soon but we needed the money) he was assaulted by a patient at work and received a TBI. He has been in recovery ever since. At approximately the same time my daughter, who was a whiteness to this violent act at 15 started showing symptoms of a psychotic disorder and has been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. After constant hospitalizations and suicide attempts she is now 18 and stable but disabled.
From the time of the divorce from my ex I received constant harassment via text, email, vm. Calling me names, shouting, degrading my life choices (which are none of his business), my ability to handle our daughter (which is very difficult and he undermines everything I try to do to get her well-including her med compliance). I have consulted professionals who sometimes tell me to get a restraining order and sometimes tell me to seriously consider whether he would abide by a restraining order because in a small percentage of cases it makes it worse. This harassment has gone on for years, and whenever it occurs I am right back to being a victim in that relationship, all the same feelings, anxiety, depression, which I struggle with anyway day-to-day but usually can work through to function pretty well-until I get more unwanted communication from my ex. I feel like this is never going to end. I have so much on my plate already, and have overcome a lot, but whenever I get this harassment I feel inadequate I question everything about myself, I get confused and can't sort out my own feelings. Part of me wants to change my email address and phone number (can't move yet), but I'm scared of the though of not knowing if he's escalating, or what kind of harmful things he might be saying to our daughter. I do not have insurance coverage for counseling, I also already have a very full schedule with care-giving to two people with serious health issues, school, and work. I don't know what to do with these feelings, and not only are they very unpleasant I know they effect my ability to function at my best. I feel depressed, trapped, angry....I don't know what to do.
Like you said, you've been successful and you should take pride in that. I wish I could give you advice but all I can do is tell you options the others have told you already. If you feel he is a dangerous threat, you can get your family and run, going through a women's shelter. If you feel like things might stay as they are, you can block him from contact except where your kids are involved. That is what my mother did from my father, although her situation was much easier because he was not constantly verbally attacking her like your ex is doing to you.
Just wanted to let you know that we are here for you and you have support through this mess! You must be worried for your daughter but she will probably be fine with time. I am 23 now but as a teenager I suffered a severe mental breakdown and went into a psychotic state for many months. I could barely eat, think, talk or do anything and I was also very suicidal. Somehow I turned out ok. When I went away to college I completely healed and made a full recovery- something not even my therapist thought I could do. She's been through a lot of trauma and once time heals some of those wounds, she'll recover to. Not saying there won't be scars, but it will be better. And I'm glad you reached out to us here at DS!
I have been through therapy and CBT, so I know ways to cope with my anxiety and depression that generally really help-until I get contact again-and then, I can't seem to help it, the feelings and negative thoughts are just cascading through my mind and I have such a hard time controlling them. I hate it. I just feel like a mess. He knows all the buttons to push to make me feel not good enough, and to doubt myself, and my anxiety just goes through the roof waiting for the next barrage of verbal abuses, just poised and ready for it as if it were a physical blow.
Then I get depressed thinking it's never going to end, I'll be 80 and I'll still be being subjected to this, and it is just so depressing. I try to tell myself I am empowering him by allowing myself to feel this way, and it's the only power he has now, but the feelings are just immediately there and I can't seem to stop them. I don't know how to make it stop. I can't think of a way out of it, and it makes me feel helpless all over again. I'm afraid an order of protection will make him worse.
I probably don't understand the situation well enough, so I would keep talking with others with more experience, but it just seems like now that your daughter is an adult, you shouldn't have to have any contact whatsoever with your ex. If you can consult with a lawyer for free, even 30 minutes, I would do that (usually they will do that if you say you are thinking of hiring them and want to have an initial exploratory consultation.)
Personally, I think you should just go ahead and file for an order for protection from him and your daughter should too. You shouldn't have to live like this. He's still harming you. There are laws against this. You can stop it.
From the time my daughter started showing symptoms she was having a great deal of problems with her father. At the time her father and I had joint custody. A week here, a week there. My parents were divorced and my mother always put us kids the middle and I was determined not to interfere with her relationship with her father, but he would always says terrible things about me, and when she would repeat them I couldn't even explain, because to defend myself would be to speak ill of him. I would just explain that those issues were between her father and I and that we both still loved her. She was angry for a long time because she always had his side of the story and not mine, but I didn't want to do anything I thought would be harmful to her so I just kept repeating the same mantra and hoped one day she would understand why I didn't talk to her about her father's and I's problems. Eventually she stopped being angry with me.
Then she started complaining about certain things about her father and I knew too well, the walking on eggshells around his moods, his confidences were making her feel like she was his emotional support and she wasn't getting the same support back, his constant criticism about her, not feeling like she was allowed to form her own opinions about things-basically a more toned down version of what I dealt with. I tried getting her into counseling but her father discouraged it, he always undermined what I tried to do with her because it was a way of asserting control over me and my life. I would get phone calls or emails that he wanted to talk to me about important things about my daughter and it always turned into the same, all about me-what I wasn't doing right in my life, I was a terrible mother, I broke up her family, I devastated him, I was a liar and a bad wife, I ruined his life, yada, yada, yada.
I tried everything to communicate with him about our daughter, especially after she got sick and there was no way to win. No matter how carefully I crafted my communications he made assumptions about what I meant and ripped it apart, getting angry and abusive again. If I tried to use logic and rationale I was a liar, and a @#$$&, and I was wrong about everything I tried to say. If I tried to assert clear boundaries for communication he would trampled all over them and be angry that I wasn't at his beck and call. If I tried to explain what was inappropriate about how he communicated with me I was told it was all my fault, if I just done what he wanted me to do that he wouldn't have to call me names and yell and get angry and harass me, and that I deserved it. There was no way to change the outcome of the verbal abuse no matter what tacit I tried.
So meanwhile my daughter's paranoia and delusions centered largely around him, and she couldn't see him for quite some time. She went to counseling about it, and eventually got so she could start to have contact again and they have been working on their relationship slowly. She sees him once a week, unless he is not respecting her boundaries in which case she distances herself for a while again. I can't help her with her relationship with her father, I have too many of my own issues with that man-I leave that up to the therapist and just reaffirm that she calls the shots in the relationship and she is an adult and can decide what kind of relationship she wants with him-and I leave it at that.
When she turned 18 I did cut off contact with him. I asked her if she wanted to sign a release for her father to get medical information, and she was fine with that, I gave him her social worker's info, website's on her condition, and information from support groups and said "Have a nice life buddy-I'm out!"
Six months later the harassment still continues. It will go for weeks, may be months with nothing and I'll get a text, or an email, or a vm going off on me. For example, recently I got a new car. I knew some harassment was coming my way-because god forbid I did something like buy a car for myself. Sure enough, I got a email, one of 5 in a row with different complaints, about how he hoped I was enjoying my new car I got off the trade from a car he bought for me when we were married-and that the kind of wife I was I didn't deserve it and blah, blah, blah (everything I did to him that six years later he's still holding on tightly too. Then it was my yard was an embarrassment, then it was I had too many dogs (I have 5 dogs), and I need to let him know if I'm moving because he needs to plan his life around me, and all of this is littered with comments about how dogs are dirty and he doesn't want his daughter around this, and he's not happy with how I'm living my life, I'm a loser, a bad parent, I was a crappy wife-and I'm thinking, I divorced you so I wouldn't have to deal with this crap anymore and here it is, still going on, I'M NOT MARRIED TO YOU, YOU JERK, I CAN DO WHAT I WANT NOW AND YOU CAN'T CONTROL IT ANYMORE!
I don't respond. I am afraid if I don't know what his state of mind is and if he's escalating I'll get a false sense of security and something bad will happen to me. And yet, these emails just make me feel like a victim again-like we never got divorced. I'm still his kicking dog, I'm still an object to be controlled through humiliation and guilt and all his other little tricks.
Also, he's never followed any of our divorce decrees and court orders, he did not desist when my parents told him to leave me the heck alone. This is not the kind of man who cares what courts or social circles say, why would I think an order of protection would do anything but publicly humiliate him and engage him further?
I go back and forth on this all the time. I feel so indecisive-but that is a big part of what emotional abuse does to you-makes you doubt yourself and your ability to make decisions.
File a restraining order.
Change your phone #
...But DON'T change your email address.
Let him threaten you via email.
For one, it's not verbal, so you can dissect the crazee...for two, you **then have time-stamped proof he's violating the restraining order. **
Right there, in writing.
You can print out a hard copy and take it to the police every time, so they have it on file that he's still harassing you via email.
...Wonder if that's an offense under federal cyberstalking laws? Because it uses the internet to harass? wouldn't that be nice? I dunno, if you can afford an attorney consult it might be good...
My problem is after my boyfriend was stabbed I know how seriously the police and legal system took a stabbing, I don't have a lot of confidence in how they would handle this kind of thing. I am just so afraid that an order of protection will make things worse-push him over the edge. I'm terrified of it. He still does not have in his psyche this idea that we are separate entities-so the danger period of that separation many people talk about-I'm not sure we've gotten there yet-if you know what I mean. When he finally gets there in his head-I am still afraid of what ill happen.
I have blocked him from my phone and email now-after a long conversation with my boyfriend about it. Now I'm just afraid of what I don't know rather than the abuse I have dealt with up to this point. We'll see what makes me feel worse.
I have tried to get a restraining order against him with no luck. My policy with him now is basically no contact unless it is related to an actual court-awarded right that he has to visit them. Otherwise, I never answer the phone (and he tries to find ways to get around this, calling from an unknown number, calling from other people's phones). I don't answer his tirade of text messages. Ignore his emails. I tried to not let them get to me. Sure, in theory, they could be used in court, if anyone cared. As it is, his aggressive behavior just validates further to me, repeatedly, that he is abusive and I made the right decision to leave. (Although I do sometimes think it might have been easier to protect my kids from the inside. I just couldn't stand it anymore.) I'm out 6 years, too, and don't really see a light at the end of the tunnel. I get the trapped feeling.
I'm agreeing with reply #6. Change phone numbers; yours and your daughters.
Call the abuse hotline in your area for guidance.
You should be so proud of what you have accomplished. Don't let your abuser continue to abuse you for the rest of your life.
I know there was damage done to my daughter, and I felt helpless to stop it for many of the reasons you mentioned. I feel a lot of guilt about it sometimes-but I have to watch that emotion because it does not help me help her to feel guilty. I go through a process where I weigh in my mind what I knew, what I could do, and again come to the conclusion that I did what I could reasonably do, knowing what I knew (like I didn't know she had a genetic predisposition for mental illness-only 1% of the population gets psychosis), with the options available to me. At least both you and I can say we modeled a strong woman who said "enough is enough" and left-our kids wouldn't have had that model otherwise and that is a VERY big deal! Now I have a healthy relationship THAT
Keepmovin,
I have talked to a variety of woman's abuse groups, and I get different advise. That doesn't help my indecision. There is a % of situations made worse by orders of protection, and so they don't want to say "You need to do this" because only I know whether he was one of those abusers who will escalate in that situation or not. And how can I know? I can't read the future, but even the possibility scares me. Orders of protection work best with the type of men who are threatened by what society and their social circle thinks of them, then it acts as a deterrent-because they don't want people to know if they got arrested or had this order put out by a court system-even if those people are strangers like police offers-it embarrasses their inflated egos and the identity they created from themselves.
That person in not my ex husband. He is a loner, he has no one, and he thinks he's better than anyone else. He has not responded to court order from our divorce-never giving me the property and such granted in our divorce, respecting parenting schedules, ext,. so it is clear he has no respect or fear of these institutions. It all just makes me fear he will not be deterred by an order of protection, and he already scares me.
I have gone back and forth for years and years on this. I just wish I could contain it-you know? Just find a way to deal with it as is-if he escalates and we have to up and move suddenly-with my boyfriend's PTSD, and my daughter's past delusion and paranoia bout him and all of that-it would just be very traumatic for several fragile people.
I go around, and around, and around about every possible scenario here.