My First Boyfriend

My Past Abusive Relationship

I am reaching burnout. I don’t know why, but lovely PTSD decided to trigger thinking about him: my first boyfriend. I haven’t said much about him to anybody. If I have, it was a casual “It was a transition period in my life” or “I lived with him for a couple months.” Just now I realized what he did to me, and why he upset me so much.

It was shortly after the car accident where my coworker died and my hospital stint where I stayed in the psych ward from Wednesday night until Saturday morning. My psych ward story is another one that needs to be told, but not today. I started finding solace getting free DVDs from the Columbia library, which was about a half hour from my apartment. It was just a couple minutes from his. When I went on Grindr, I just expected the usual college guys. I didn’t expect a mature car salesman who had his life together and was recently single. I spent a little time with him, and I’m not afraid to admit that I took advantage of his hospitality.

Things at my old apartment and old job were ending pretty quickly. I was moving to Pennsylvania, but the family was still getting room ready for me there and it wouldn’t be a while until things were in shape for me to move there. And then there was the apartment. I had collected a whole apartment’s worth of stuff, and I had to pare it down to a car’s worth of stuff to drive it to Pennsylvania. It was like college 2.0, except everything you owned had to fit into your tiny car. Everything from your plants and clothes to your poetry to your shoes to the things you put your shoes in. I don’t even remember what all stuff I had, it was so long ago! There were a lot of photos and my entire stash of poetry that I had written since I had lost my first stash years ago. It devastated me losing it the first time. Years of hard, handwritten work lost to laundry, misplacement, and whatever else. No, my original work was coming with me.

But I had just a few weeks to donate or throw away pretty much everything, Then I met this cute guy, and a few days in, he asked me to move in with him. I was young and thought nothing of it. I figured I could help around his house as well as continue my paring process while he was at work, and we could spend evenings getting to know each other. 

He fell in love with me. Hard.

I fell into depression. HARD.

I couldn’t get out of bed a lot of days. I watched most of Will and Grace. At first he was willing to forgive and forget, but his mercy only lasted so long, and when it was over, it was over. His bad side came out. He didn’t understand how I could just fall into depression and not get over it. He had this idea of me just never leaving. He would provide for the household. I could do whatever I wanted during the day or eventually get a job. We would be happy. The more he pushed this idea, the more I ran away from it. I couldn’t stay a half hour away from the car accident. I had to start life over again.

My car failed inspection.

My dreams of moving to Pennsylvania came to a screeching halt. I didn’t know what to do. I could barely fit things in my car. That was my entire life! I refused to give up more. My friends said just a couple more weeks and they would be ready. I had to get rid of my stuff and the vehicle and find some way to move my life to a different state. I had to make the transition for my own mental health.

But he refused to understand.

I thought we finally agreed since the car couldn’t pass inspection to scrap it. I went to the DMV to get a scrap metal license, and then his entire demeaner changed…again… This wasn’t the first time he was angry, but it was one of the last times. He refused to remember he agreed to scrap the car, saying he had a buddy who could fix it up. To say I was stressed out was an understatement, and he just made it worse.

Then his demeaner would change and he would call me husband material and beg me to stay with him.

I refused.

He would get pissed off.

It went back and forth for weeks and weeks until I just got plane tickets, signed the title of the car and everything left in the car over to him, and just left him with my suitcase and carry-on, and got a ride from a friend to the airport.

He couldn’t believe I had actually gone.

I knew I made the right decision when a few weeks later he sent me a nude picture of his “new boyfriend” and said he wasn’t as hot as I was, but wasn’t I jealous? I blocked his number.

I don’t think I told that story in all my years of therapy. It was like the hidden box at the back of the closet that will never see the light of day. There are stories like that in my life. 

Sure, I can tell you about the day my mother died or the day the lesbian got exorcised.

But telling you that I let myself get abused? After a college degree in social work? It can happen to anyone.

We have to end the stigma and start helping people.