A Ghost in my Own Life

I was with my boyfriend for just over three years. At the beginning, he was very nice and caring, and I thought we would be together for ever. After about six months he asked me to move into his place and told me he would put my name on the lease. I believed him because I had no reason not to. But once I moved in, weird things started happening; for example, my make-up disappeared and my favorite going out dress got ripped in the wash, just to name a couple. This was the start of my abusive relationship, but I couldn’t see it because there was always a reasonable explanation. He loved me so why he would hurt me?

Fast-forward three years: I looked up and all my friends had gone, I had lost my job, and my only support was him. I had become a shell of a person. It felt like I was a ghost in a movie of my life, I was wandering around, but no one could see me or hear me.

It was at this point that he said he had met someone else as I was a ‘pathetic weak idiot’, those were his exact words. He said he was moving out. I thought I could take over the lease but turns out I was never on the lease, and I had 30 days to find a new place to live. I had no money, no family, no energy.

I thought to myself he is right, I am pathetic.

I had to go to a women’s shelter for the first time. Someone there said, “I see you and you’re not stupid, he is an abuser, and you were in an abusive relationship”. I will be honest and say I didn’t believe her at first, it took some time for me to process that someone could be so calculated and evil.

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It has been two years and I still feel like that ghost sometimes, but I am learning to be human again.

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