I met my ex when I was in high school . Perfect relationship at first. We had a great couple of months. Things gradually got bad. Name calling. Comments putting me down or embarrassing me. Manipulating me. Playing mind games. Controlling. Then things got really bad. He was angry all the time and he was mean. Slap across the face. Kicking me. Pushing me. Pulling me away from something. Throwing me into walls. Raping me. We dated on and off for well over a year. I finally had enough and said I was done. The repercussions were terrible. He stalked me. Spread rumors. Turned friends against me. Sent out very person and private pictures to all of his friends. Damaged property of one my friends in hopes to get my attention. I noticed that the more angry I got and the more I reacted, the worse things got. One day things just stopped. I moved on with my life. I started dating this great guy and I was really getting myself back together.

Over the course of the past 6 years, he has made appearance after appearance. Sometimes it would be a drunken phone call at 3 AM. Sometimes he'd tell me he missed me. Sometimes he would beg me to take him back. Sometimes he was angry. I never really knew what to expect when his name came up on my phone. I blocked him more than once but he always found other ways to get in contact with me. Then I started responding back. At the time, it was in hopes of being able to make him stop. He sucked me right back in though.

He'd come around and I would be angry. Then I would be so happy to talk to him again because I did miss him. I missed the guy I knew that he could be. He would be great for a couple of weeks and I honestly would have dropped my whole life to go back. Then he would disappear again and I wouldn't hear from him anywhere from a week or two to a few months. But he always came back and I was always so happy until I wasn't.

This last time though was different. I had been seeing someone for awhile. It was serious. I had moved on and kept pushing my life in any direction that was away from him. But then he came back. Begging me to move in with him in this great house he just bought. Asking me to marry him. Talking about having kids and settling down and how much he had changed. He wanted me to just  talk to him so I could see how different things could be this time. So I did. I wanted so badly for it to be true.

He was so much worse than I thought he could be. His drinking was out of control. His anger was unpredictable. I kept telling him that I couldn't do this. I was seeing someone new. I just got engaged. But there was always a crisis. His dog was dying. His grandma passed away. Things with work got really bad. He needed to talk to someone. He was depressed and suicidal.

He kept coming back and sucking me back in. I'm exhausted. I'm so angry at everyone. I don't want to be around people. I'm fighting off panic attacks all day long. I can't sleep. When I do, I dream about him. I dream that I finally get to marry him and how great of a life we could have together. I'm really struggling right now.