Reflective Essay: How Real Abuse Changed My Life

I was in an abusive relationship. He never hit me. I’ve never had to cover up bruises or lie to my family about any scars. The closest he ever got to being violent towards me was grazing my cheek on his was to hit the wall behind me. My body was left alone, but my heart and my spirit were broken down until they were nearly unrecognizable. Friends told me I had changed, even my mother told me she didn’t know who I was anymore. I was an empty shell of a girl who didn’t even know herself. If we know and realize that our minds make us who we are, then why don’t we take emotional abuse seriously? I, along with many others, believed that I didn’t have a right to claim the title abused. That it was a title reserved for the women who were in shelters, who had been through “real abuse.” Abuse is abuse no matter the form it takes, and the sooner we realize it, the better we’ll be able to empower ourselves to own our past and move on. …show more content…
Any time that I wasn’t working or at school was wasted if I wasn’t spending it with him, so I wasn’t allowed to leave the house without him. The one time I dared go to the beach with my friends he yelled at me in front of my best friend and called her a bitch. He threw out my clothes that he didn’t approve of because he didn’t want other guys to see me in revealing clothes. (I live on a hot island off the coast of Texas, shorts are necessary, y’all). He didn’t like that I was/am vegan, so he’d constantly buy large quantities of dairy and throw them away in front of me if I refused to eat them. He said he thought he was helping me because deep down, that’s what was best for me and what I really wanted. He used that justification for a lot of things. From coercing sex, to trying to get me to take a semester off of school and quit theatre, it was all because I really wanted it and he was playing the bad guy for my own