Physical abuse and self harm

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I got out of a relationship several months ago with someone who had stated a willingness to harm me, threatened to harm me, and actually harmed me. Primarily verbally, but also physically, which is the main point here.
This had a bad enough effect on my sanity, but then this person expressed concern and frustration whenever I would harm myself. "This doesn't accomplish anything." "This makes people feel like they can't be critical of you." "Psychology has demonstrated that this behavior is harmful."
Now, I generally consider myself to be a level-headed, sober person, who knows that, while emotions are valid, it is important to step back and try to use logic in difficult situations. But HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA this really did a number on me. It's sh*t like this that makes me understand why people become deranged. This is the same person who suggested it was just politically correct pop psychology bs that makes people think it's automatically abusive to harm children or loved ones --though this person would not frame it so unflatteringly.
It's just become a recurring motif in my intrusive thoughts any time someone advocates violence in interpersonal relationships, yet also expresses genuine concern when someone they are willing to harm expresses a willingness to harm themselves. It makes me want to slash up my face and splash my blood in their eyes. Fills me with twisted fantasies where I have a knife to my throat and I ask this person/whoever else shares these beliefs: "Do you have more right to harm me than I do?" At which point they either say "yes", which is indisputably a f****d up thing to think. Or they say "no", in which case they are forced to state the obvious immorality and insanity of their logic where they have more right to harm someone else's body than that person has that same right to do that to their own body.
This person is no longer part of my life. Which is a good thing and a bad thing. This is a person so self-deluded this person became visibly choked up and played the victim and denied it when ALL the people this person lived with for 4-6 years finally stood up and called this person's behavior abusive. So this person is still out there, still considering themself the victim, still telling their fresh and ignorant friends how awful we all were, and its a little hard to sleep at ease.
So now, when I am around someone in my life who: has expressed a willingness to harm those close to them (and considers me naive when I say it's wrong/impractical), yet expresses disapproval or concern when I express a willingness to harm myself (an urge I have managed to keep in check for a while); then I am ripped back into those sick fantasies where I righteously humiliate and terrify them for their indefensible moral standards. But that's not the kind of person I am or want to be. I've spent enough time with friends who spit venom and fury at each other over things which, while serious, do not warrant such derangement.
I don't know what I'm asking for help with here. My ex is out of my life. I'm not often around family members who have expressed similar opinions as my ex (at most) infrequently. I shouldn't fixate on this as much as I do, but at the same time I know I encounter people every day (irl and online and ahaha these very same forums) who, if asked, would say that self-harm is always wrong but harming loved ones is sometimes okay (besides, you know, self defense)--though, again, they would phrase it much more flatteringly. So I'm filled with these maddening intrusive thoughts constantly and no one faces any consequences and no one pays and no one learns and no one understands.
And

I'm so sorry to hear this was happening to you all that time. You were gaslight with psychological abuse, implied physical abuse, and you developed trauma from the relationship, regardless of who was harming you. The common denominator for people in abusive relationships with partners, whether DV or IPV, is that the abused person is rendered helpless for any number of reasons. One of the most damning is that they aren't always believed. That happened to me because of my autism. If I went to police calmly I was dismissed because I was too calm and had a flat affect. If I went to police crying or having a meltdown from fear, they said I was hysterical. I couldn't go to a shelter because I owned the house and couldn't surrender it to them as an asset. Police wouldn't evict them unless I paid lawyers, which ended up costing me half a million dollars over 25 years.

Sorry to rant about my thing but I want you to know I sympathise. Abused men are often too terrified to report what has happened, and I understand that. You're helpless to defend yourself. I know a 300 pound man who is abused physically and emotionally by his tiny, disabled mother. He won't lift a finger to fight back because of the size and gender difference. He knows police and the law likely won't believe him. My brother's second wife tried to kill him with poisons which were finally detected in hair samples, as he grew increasingly ill and saw a battery of medical specialists who couldn't figure it out. People can be freaking nuts, regardless of their demographic in society. Likewise, all people can be and often are abused.

The take-away here is that it's not your fault and we believe you. You don't need to hide your story behind spoilers for fear of offending anyone. Have you been in touch with any support services for survivors of abuse? Have you talked to your doctor, or anyone, at this point? Doctors need to be confidential so that's a good place to start and they can probably refer you to psychological services or even victims' services in your area.

Here are some links to WP threads on this topic, and some for domestic violence support for all people, including men.

You've taken that first step of speaking out, and now you know you aren't alone.

Big hugs, and keep us informed of how you're doing.





viewtopic.php?f=35&t=401564&p=8928966&hilit=PTSD+men%27s+sexual+assault#p8928966


viewtopic.php?f=3&t=398728&hilit=Autistic+Men


https://www.gabbypetitofoundation.org/


https://www.helpguide.org/articles/abus ... abused.htm

I'm really sorry you went through that. It sounds awful.

It's definitely hard to come forward when you've experienced DV, especially for men. I never came forward about my abusive situation because I was threatened with more violence/retaliation. My husband knows people. Even without the risk of more violence, it's hard for me to self-advocate offline because of my timidity and autism. The only people who know anything are people on WP although I'm thinking about telling my brother and cousin.

Anyway, I hope that you are able to find support. I certainly can relate to your story and hear you.

Bloody awful.

I'm glad you are now seemingly in a better place.

I don't think you should feel guilty either for self-harming or for being a victim of abuse. Neither is a moral failing.

Here's a link to the National Domestic Violence Hotline (NDVH) in USA, for you or anyone else who needs help:


https://www.thehotline.org/


Actually it's for Canada too. ^

It has links to online therapists trained in DV PTSD.

I appreciate the sympathy and understanding and resources. But ppl are getting hung up on the gender aspect of it, which is an important part of it, but not the part that made me impulse-post on here.
The crux of this I'm missing is just. What is the logic in these people's heads that hurting me is sometimes okay but me hurting me is never okay? My ex had redeeming qualities. It's what made her behavior easier to rationalize. She has never been good at showing vulnerability. The only time I saw her cry (she was facing away from me so I am not sure) was when I said how much I was struggling not to self harm, because she had her own history of self harm and it was very painful and it took a long time for her to get through. (It's okay, over time her concern turned into annoyance, paranoia, and contempt.) This is ironic bc no one made me want to do that more than her. It was her that finally pushed me over the edge too. One night, she was being dismissive of me over something unimportant, and I actually tried to be assertive for once and not let her dismiss me. She responded by putting a big grin on her face and giving me the silent treatment. So I left the room feeling numb and worthless, so I finally got good use out of my box cutter. This wasn't me trying to get back at her. This was me punishing myself, because I had internalized that I deserved to be treated like that, and I wanted to motivate myself to be better so i wouldnt deserve to be treated that way, and she had also (insultingly) "convinced" me that corporal punishment is effective/acceptable in general. She never heard...basically anything about any of that incident. Bc she never expressed any remorse for how she spoke to me, and I knew she would treat me as manipulative or toxic if I was honest about what happened.
(Amusing aside: Abusers become extra nasty when they find out they have been lied to, yet abusers cause people to lie by being abusive. Their words say: "Never lie to me or else". But their actions scream: "Never be honest with me or else". I have never met an abuser who realized this. She would get especially sanctimonious about how she was the only person in the house who wasn't a liar (she mostly lies to herself, so she can sincerely believe the blatant falsehoods she says.) There was an incident where I told my mother something unflattering about her, because she asked, and I had guessed that my ex would have been mad if I *hadn't* been honest about her with others. Bc truth and honesty are important right? Wrong. She berated me for sharing that information until I cried. Crying was the only thing that made her stop with any consistency. So I stopped crying around her, because I internalized that I was being unconsciously manipulative by not resisting the urge to cry. Good times!)
That got long. Anyway. What is her legit argument for why she has more right to damage my body than I do? She cites psychology articles and such for how bad it is for ME to harm ME, but when I suggested that a relationships is abusive if one person hits the other, or when I suggested that corporal punishment in general is wrong, she speaks to me like I am an idiot, and suggests I only believe these things because I supposedly blindly believe anything I read on social media. In hindsight I should have shoved psych article after psych article and psych study after psych study in her face from reputable sources on how wrong she was, but I didn't. I went silent, as I often did, because even though I knew I was in the right, I was so shocked and appalled at her aggressive, insulting posture that I just let the conversation die and tried to move on with my day as best I could. She gave me every reason to believe that no matter how much evidence or reason I used, she would just scoff and say "Okay, Matt", just like she did the night I first cut myself.
(She really felt victimized when we moved in with other people and she tried to treat me like that in front of them. They immediately shut her down and she ran away without saying anything. She made sure to berate me in private later. Claimed to be the victim, accused us of ganging up on her, made threats to kick me out (it was legally her house), made vague threats to tell them I had done things in the past to hurt her (invariably it was things I had apologized for, tthings I still feel bad about, things I changed myself because of, things she would under normal circumstances claim to have forgiven me for, things which I emphatically said every single time i was "threatened" that i was in no Way opposed to her sharing.) This all drove me closer to the people we lived with who (fittingly) were arguably even more abusive and toxic.)

Dear God I hate that I can't be brief. I start on these topics and it's like a dam bursts and I don't stop over sharing until I run out of emotional energy. I hate making people read a short novel about my personal issues.
Just.
What's the logic? (Or illogic?) That convinces some people that violence against friends and family is sometimes okay, but it is never ever okay for those same people to hurt themselves? "So I can't hurt me, but you can hurt me? Is the violence too consensual if I hurt me? Is the violence only okay if you love that person and they end up afraid of you? Can you imagine any circumstance where it would be okay for me to hurt you? Because I can't. I would never hit you. Do you think that makes me weak? What do you think that makes me? What about you is so special that you can do it and I can't? How would you react if a lady friend of yours told you her boyfriend had threatened to hit her? Would you be outraged? And if a guy friend had told you his girlfriend had done the same? Would your reaction be the same? Why should I believe your reaction would be the same?" Etc etc etc words I never bothered trying to say so they run on repeat in my trash brain for 5 years.

And I want to emphasize that threats of physical violence happened maybe 2-3 times and actually raising a hand in anger against me only happened once iirc (In court, I called it a "smack". She called it just a "shove". Last I checked, shoves do not make an audible "smack" sound). But it only takes a few times for the damage to be done.
It's been almost exactly a year since we last spoke (it wasn't a pleasant conversation), and I just wish I had moved on more than this. It doesn't help I'm fresh out of friends (that is not an invitation to try and befriend me), so I don't have that flavor of distraction. Just me in this city alone with 60,000 people and my thoughts.

I understand that your concern is more about the gaslighting and psychological abuse than gender or violence. It's all the same in terms you feeling vulnerable, confused, and assaulted by the way she treated you with double standards and manipulative crazy-making.

I know my WP links might not have been exactly on-point, but the idea was that we at WP do care about all people who get abused, and there are professionals who can help you manage these feelings if you're interested. It's a long journey to understand why she acted that way, to process it, and to keep your self-concept intact, so if there's anything we can do to support you please say. Lots of us had partners or other people in our lives who acted just as erratically so I think you'll find a lot of sympathy here. I'm glad you reached out.

Also, I only mentioned gender because you expressed a concern that you might be considered misogynist for making your post, and as such you put it behind a spoiler as if it might be offensive. I wanted to make sure you know we aren't going to jump on you for talking about abuse or mistreatment by a woman, or by anyone at all for that matter. Gender is as inconsequential to me in this situation as it likely is to you.

Last edited by IsabellaLinton on 13 Aug 2023, 10:27 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Ha! (That's a bitter laugh, not a genuine one). One of the other abusive people in the house (also generally okay with violence like my ex. I think they influenced each other) was disabled and very physically and emotionally frail. I was the biggest, strongest person in that house. All three of them shared these beliefs about violence (as far as I know), yet I didn't. If I wanted to, I could probably have kicked the s**t out of all of them even if they all came at me at the same time. No one was more physically capable of violence than I, no one was better equipped to defend themselves from violence than I, yet I never did either. There were times I wish I had put some fear into these people, but that's not me. If I actually get to the point in a friendship where I feel justified in using fear and violence against them, then I would rather just walk away from the relationship. Solitude is much, much better.
Like I said, I've crushingly alone and depressed in this town for months. Even so, I am still happier than I have been in a long time. I feel much less lonely now than I did when I was surrounded by "friends". I feel like me in ways I hadn't felt since 2010. I'm still scarred and depressed and lonely, but this is waaaaaaay better than being anywhere near those people.

I hear you. I don't want to sound trite, but welcome to the world of trauma. You're in good company here.

I wasn't worried about being called misogynist, per se. The spoilers was just a tool to withhold information so people could develop an opinion before figuring out the genders of everyone involved. I just want to take precaution. It doesn't look great when someone starts off saying how irrational and angry and unreasonable their ex girlfriend is.
On some level, I understand perfectly why she was the way she was. I have known her a long time. I know her values (well, I thought I did), I know her upbringing, I know her family, I know her personality, I know her faults, I know her fears. Abuse has helped teach me that people can and almost always do believe contradictory things at the same time. I know I do. Self-awareness is hard. Even if you are self-aware, it's still hard to face these things and process them. All the time I would see it in her eyes: the eyes of someone who knows on some level that they are in the wrong, but they cannot process it or admit it to themselves, so they go silent or, in the heat of the moment, spit out excuses or deflections--no matter how bafflingly absurd. Just an example: we were visiting one of her friend's parents. Before we got there, she insulted me in front of her other friends by asking me if I was "going to behave" myself. Then we visit the parents. The parents thought I was pleasant, and smart, and nice, and fun to be around. The parents were so appalled by her behavior that they implored their child to get away from her. They even asked their child point blank "Why don't you spend more time with this Matt guy instead?" When I confronted her about both how she had spoken to me and how wrong she had been and how wrong her own behavior had been, what did I get? A backhanded: "Well, I'm sorry I don't have parents who are lawyers!". It took me some time to process what she was even driving at here. My parents were completely unrelated to the situation, I had not mentioned them, their being lawyers was not relevant to the situation, the fact that their being lawyers gave me a privileged upbringing or anythinf else at all involving money was unrelated to anything. Eventually I figured this was because I had suggested years ago that, despite my autism, I thought having parents who were lawyers helped me learn poise, manners, and composure in social situations that I might not have had given my obvious Aspy-ness. This is just one of many such examples of nasty yet nonsensical deflections.

I don't think that's trite, but thank you.