I didn't think I'd have to come back here.

It's been a year since I managed to leave my abusive boyfriend. The last time I posted, I'd been with him a year, he had just gotten physically violent with me for the first time and I told you all that I needed the strength to leave him for good. I stayed. For another year and a half. I didn't have the strength. Another year and a half of him chipping away at me mentally - because his mental abuse was so much worse than the physical, so much more constant - until I finally found I could leave.

I finished university and moved back home, found a job. He lived a way's out and once I got the job he told me I never made time for him. Said that me sending him sexts and naughty pictures were the only way to keep our relationship fun and more than just a friendship. Yes, he said that after being together 2.5 years. In the end he said enough was enough, it was too boring for him if I wasn't goint to put out at his beckoned call. So he broke up with me for the umpteenth time. So I let him go. Then blocked him off every avaiable social media platform, blocked his number and tore my heart out because I still loved him.

What followed was a few weeks of our mutual friends awkwardly asking me if I'd get back in contact with him because he said he had made the biggest mistake of his life, then finally it stopped. I found out much later that he was in a relationship with someone else less than a month after we had split. She's pregnant now, I think after only 4 months. I have my suspicions they were already together while he was with me, near to the end of it. It wouldn't be the first time. I mean there was a girl at the start, and one in the middle so why not one at the end too?

Sorry, I'm digressing. Anyway, it's been a year since it ended. A year since I heard from him. And yet, he still haunts me. I wake up crying, having panic attacks, his face and his shouting and his manipulation as real in my head as if he's still there. I have a new partner now, but we're early stages. I'm carrying so much baggage with me, I just want to forget it all and be happy with him. For some reason this past week has been particularly hard.

So, my new partner was cheated on in his last relationship making him a little on edge. Fair enough, I'm exactly the same. So, he googled my main username (it's not Sallymad) and a lot of websites came up and he asked me about some of them. I haven't told him about my abuse, so I panicked and thought he might have found DailyStrength, as I used to go by my common UN on here. I came back here to delete the posts I'd made, but read through them first. God, I wish I hadn't.

I'd forgotten. I'd repressed so much of it. And reading it made me remember back to the moment when he'd choked me unconscious. This past week I've been haunted every night by that same moment, and his anger and his snide putdowns. And that moment was 1 year into a 2.5 relationship. Why did I stay with him? WHY? I've been so low the past few days and I'm so scared that it's getting too on top of me and it'll start affecting my new relationship. I don't want to tell him what happened to me; I don't want him to look at me differently or maybe even leave me because I've got too much baggage. I mean for goodness sake, last night he mentioned over snapchat his best friend's ex wanted to come drinking with us at some point (just me and him) and I went into a secret meltdown because I can't trust it won't turn out exactly like it did with my ex and his numerous girls. Which is ridiculous because I know for certain that he isn't like that but the dread won't let me remember that.

Should I explain to him? Would that be too much? Should I talk to someone else? God I just want to send my ex a massive message of hatred. I don't hate. I dislike people at the best of times, but my ex I hate. I don't want to be a fucked up mess forever. I want a normal relationship. I don't want any more repressed memories popping back up and ruining me again; because they have such a habit of doing that. Urgh I don't even know what I want from writing this. I feel a bit lost, constantly having to put on this happy facade in front of my boyfriend for fear I'm not the fun-loving, happy-go-lucky girlfriend he thinks I am. I'm so scared to ask for him to hold me because I feel broken, because whenever I did that with my ex he insulted me, belittled me, withheld any comfort until I'd done something sexual with him. I'm so scared of someone turning out like my ex did. Please, someone help. I need advice. Please.