Just want to talk to someone

Apologies as this is quite long, also I'm not sure where I should post this. I just really need to properly talk about it. I'm not sure if I'm making a big deal out of nothing or just being silly. I just can't stop thinking about it.

It is about something that happened to me on new year’s day 2015. My (now-ex) partner was verbally abusive for years and I dealt with it, he had issues and I didn't really blame him for it. But for some reason this now keeps playing on my mind, despite me not thinking about it for the last couple of months. I find myself wondering if it was a big deal or not. Part of me thinks it shouldn’t be but for the last week now I just can’t stop thinking about it. I feel angry and upset and I want to talk to someone about it. I have vaguely told one good friend but not in a serious manner. And then when drunkenly cuddling with another friend and talking for hours I told him some of it but I’m not sure he remembers, and at that time it wasn’t playing on my mind like it is now. Now it is affecting me and I just want to talk about it.

On new year’s eve my (now ex) boyfriend and his flat mate decided to throw a party. People started drinking as soon as they arrived, and considering people were coming from afar, this was pretty early. I arrived at around 5, and my boyfriend had already had a couple. It was a fancy dress party and I hadn’t seen my costume before that night so tried it on as soon as I got there. My boyfriend was very impressed. It was basically a skin-tight black catsuit. He started kissing me and I asked if he wanted to have sex, because it seemed like that’s where it was heading and I wanted to be careful with my costume as the zip was a bit faulty. He said he didn’t want to because there were people already there and he wanted to go up to the party. So we went up, we both drank a lot and people were very impressed with my costume. There were a lot of comments made about my attractiveness. He seemed pleased with this, which I was glad about because he can get very jealous and I was worried about that. I ended up not feeling well and slept for a few hours. I got up around 2, confused as to why I was alone and why he hadn’t woken me up for midnight. I went to find him, he was happy and still drunk. I wasn’t so drunk by this time. We stayed up until around 6.30 when we went back to his bed. I was really tired and felt very nauseas. I just wanted to go to sleep. He wanted to have sex. He got increasingly annoyed when I didn’t want to. He started saying he was going to sleep with other people and that I needed to be better. He made it clear that I wasn’t allowed to sleep with other people, just him. There was a girl at the party he wanted to sleep with so I told him to go and find her. I told him to go and sleep with other people. I just didn’t care. I just wanted him to stop. He carried on going on about how we didn’t have sex enough and that it wasn’t fair etc. I can’t remember much of it to be honest but I know it carried on for at least half an hour. Eventually when he wouldn’t stop trying, I told him to just do it. I just lay there. He started going at it. It hurt. I started to shake, cry and hyperventilate. I clearly didn’t want to have sex but he just went on at me until I caved in. I just wanted it to finish but he was too drunk and couldn’t stay properly hard. He just kept going. He didn’t care about how clearly distressed I was. He asked if he was raping me. I replied that I didn’t know. He asked again and I said that I had said he could do it so it wasn’t rape. But it felt like it was. I was scared of him. He was hurting me. He could see I was distressed yet he didn’t care, he just carried on. After a while he gave up. I thought that was it. I turned away from him. That wasn’t it though. He was getting lube. He spread it other my bottom and into my anus. Anal sex isn’t something I’m comfortable with. I was scared and upset that he was doing that, but for some reason I just lay there wondering if he was really going to do that, wondering how far he’d go. I think I must have got up or said something because I know he stopped. He was angry, I was still in my panic-attack-like state. He started on about me not being good enough, me not wanting to please him in bed, him being unsatisfied again. I wanted to leave. I tried to leave. He just grabbed my wrist each time. I didn’t struggle very hard. He’s obviously much stronger and I knew I wouldn’t be going anywhere if he didn’t want me to. At the same time, I wonder if I’d have really struggled to get free if he’s have let me. I wanted to leave, he wanted me to go back to bed and sleep. Despite that he kept on with his verbal abuse. Just grabbing my wrist to ensure I wasn’t going anywhere each time I tried to move. Eventually he went to sleep, at around 830. I didn’t. I couldn’t. I lay there for hours thinking about how I had to get away from him. Get away from this relationship. I’d always said to myself that if he ever physically hurt me I’d leave him. I wasn’t sure that this counted as that, but I just suddenly had the feeling that one day he would hurt me. That if I stayed with him, one day he would properly rape me. I saw the potential that he had. It terrified me.

It took me another month to finally end it. He was angry. He was upset. But I won’t go into that. It’s now been three and a half months, and I think I was doing ok. But recently I can’t stop thinking back to this. I can’t believe he did that to me. I can’t believe that is how he treated me. And he thought it was ok. He thought that he treated me like a princess. I just keep thinking about this and I feel like I can’t breathe. I feel anxious, upset and scared. I have been ok for since and not thought about it. I don’t understand why it keeps playing in my mind now. I can’t concentrate on my studies. I just feel overwhelmed by this experience, and to a lesser extent some of the others. I don’t want to think about it. I want to forget it. I want to forget him. I wonder if now that I’m out of that relationship and he is no longer there to play everything down and make me feel like it was my fault, that I am more affected by his behaviour. He always made things seem normal, or not a big deal. Now I just can’t believe the things he though were ok. It just keeps popping into my head and I just want to forget.

You made the right decision.

He was not all that you thought he was.

You will feel better with time.

These things effect people in different ways for different reasons. Hopefully as you move forward find new love, new interests in life he will be just something you are relived you escaped.

I agree with Terry, and would maybe add that the arising of these thoughts to bother you now, awhile after the actual event, is a characteristic of PTSD. Whether or not you define what happened as rape, I think for you there was a similar level of trauma as being raped. So if you feel the need to talk about it, I'd encourage you to do so and deal with it openly. The first instinct is to put it out of your mind and try to forget, but it has a way of coming back, or surfacing in unexpected ways. That too is a characteristic of PTSD. It's easier to put it behind you once you've acknowledged and processed it. It's ok to ask for help while you're doing that. I hope you will do whatever you feel is needed for you to be well.

Everyone is different. In my own experience not validating and allowing myself to feel the anger and pain, was like it didn't matter, like I didn't matter.

You didn't deserve that and you have a right to your feelings. Do what you believe will heal you.