Hi Earthbugs,
Today isn't as much of a cheery post as I would usually write but it is an important post that I think is very relevant as October is Domestic Violence Awareness month. I have thought about posting this and then changed my mind and then considered it and here it is.
A thing to remember is that domestic violence isn't just physical abuse, it comes in many forms of abuse including emotional abuse. That is what today's post is about, about a friend of mine who experienced emotional abuse at a young age.
She was fifteen and in a relationship with a boy in her year at school, at fifteen it was nothing serious. At fifteen she was enjoying secondary school, with the laughs and jokes that summer bought and how teachers started being a bit more chill and lenient with work.
A couple of months down the line, my friend was told that her boyfriend didn't like the idea of her having males as friends. So she distanced herself from her friends, she didn't want to but just assumed that that was expected and you were meant to do things to keep your partner happy. It even got to the point of her not being able to have males on Snapchat, but she complied with orders.
Another day, she posted a picture of herself on Instagram. She'd curled her hair and put some make up on and she felt really happy with how she looked, she liked to make the effort randomly now and again. She received a lot of messages telling her that she shouldn't be wearing make up as it would attract other boys and that wouldn't be fair on him as she was his girlfriend, it would be wrong for her to encourage other boys with how she looked. Even though, she just wanted to wear some make up. She kept the make up on but received a lot of hateful messages about it after, making her self esteem shoot down.
She wanted to go and look at sixth forms, so she could choose the right place for her to go on after she had finished her GCSEs so she could work hard to get into the university she wanted to go to. He didn't believe her. He insisted on going with her as she was probably just going to meet "boys", which once again wasn't fair on him and did she really think he was that stupid to not know the real reason she was going?
The same happened for a snow day with friends, a meal out for her friends birthday and many other times. If he wasn't there directly, he was there looking through a window ensuring she wasn't with other boys, or he was there on her phone making sure she couldn't use it. By either ringing constantly or sending multiple messages that weren't pleasant, don't worry though, she blocked his number. That did no good though, he simply rang through using No Caller ID. There was no way of avoiding him for her.
She finally gave up and ended things with him. But that did nothing, in fact it probably made it worse because she was no longer explicitly his.
The calls and messages somehow got worse, he would find other numbers to spam her on and always seemed to know what she was doing.
Then the suicide threats started, "if you don't want me then I don't want to be alive". She hated it when this happened, she didn't want to be with and she wanted nothing to do with him but she didn't want him to commit suicide and she definitely didn't want to be the reason that someone prematurely ended their life. So she replied and humoured him, to which he found hilarious but she was broken inside, she was scared and she saw no way out.
He spread rumours about her and successfully turned many people against her. He had spies spying on her so he knew her every move. There were days he'd follow her home. There were days that all this wasn't exciting enough as he would like so he caused a scene at school.
He thought he had ownership of her and she wasn't strong enough to end it all. She was too scared to tell an adult who could do something so it mounted up. Unlike many others though, she did have a couple of friends that supported and helped her through it. But she had a particular friend who knew everything, who stuck up for her through it all, who was the strong one for her, they were a bit of a duo and at the time it was definitely them against the world. They were inseparable and as time marched on and years passed they grew apart and they're no longer in contact but she is forever grateful for the support and love that friend showed her in her darkest days, an absolute angel sent from heaven above because without her, she doesn't know what she would have done. Thank you.
And this doesn't even cover all of it.
At 15, my friend was naive as to the fact that this could be seen as emotional abuse and just thought it was a very nasty thing. But at 15, you don't expect to go through something like that. Although it was a horrible experience and looking back on it isn't a pleasant thing, the experience made her a stronger person and nowadays she wouldn't stand for anything she was put through before.
She also stands for others who have experienced any form of domestic violence, there's a lot of it out there and a lot of it is under the radar. There's people out there to help, but sometimes it isn't that easy to get the help. My friend was lucky, but there are others who aren't and we should all be voices for sufferers of domestic violence.
Lia x
Today isn't as much of a cheery post as I would usually write but it is an important post that I think is very relevant as October is Domestic Violence Awareness month. I have thought about posting this and then changed my mind and then considered it and here it is.
A thing to remember is that domestic violence isn't just physical abuse, it comes in many forms of abuse including emotional abuse. That is what today's post is about, about a friend of mine who experienced emotional abuse at a young age.
She was fifteen and in a relationship with a boy in her year at school, at fifteen it was nothing serious. At fifteen she was enjoying secondary school, with the laughs and jokes that summer bought and how teachers started being a bit more chill and lenient with work.
A couple of months down the line, my friend was told that her boyfriend didn't like the idea of her having males as friends. So she distanced herself from her friends, she didn't want to but just assumed that that was expected and you were meant to do things to keep your partner happy. It even got to the point of her not being able to have males on Snapchat, but she complied with orders.
Another day, she posted a picture of herself on Instagram. She'd curled her hair and put some make up on and she felt really happy with how she looked, she liked to make the effort randomly now and again. She received a lot of messages telling her that she shouldn't be wearing make up as it would attract other boys and that wouldn't be fair on him as she was his girlfriend, it would be wrong for her to encourage other boys with how she looked. Even though, she just wanted to wear some make up. She kept the make up on but received a lot of hateful messages about it after, making her self esteem shoot down.
She wanted to go and look at sixth forms, so she could choose the right place for her to go on after she had finished her GCSEs so she could work hard to get into the university she wanted to go to. He didn't believe her. He insisted on going with her as she was probably just going to meet "boys", which once again wasn't fair on him and did she really think he was that stupid to not know the real reason she was going?
The same happened for a snow day with friends, a meal out for her friends birthday and many other times. If he wasn't there directly, he was there looking through a window ensuring she wasn't with other boys, or he was there on her phone making sure she couldn't use it. By either ringing constantly or sending multiple messages that weren't pleasant, don't worry though, she blocked his number. That did no good though, he simply rang through using No Caller ID. There was no way of avoiding him for her.
She finally gave up and ended things with him. But that did nothing, in fact it probably made it worse because she was no longer explicitly his.
The calls and messages somehow got worse, he would find other numbers to spam her on and always seemed to know what she was doing.
Then the suicide threats started, "if you don't want me then I don't want to be alive". She hated it when this happened, she didn't want to be with and she wanted nothing to do with him but she didn't want him to commit suicide and she definitely didn't want to be the reason that someone prematurely ended their life. So she replied and humoured him, to which he found hilarious but she was broken inside, she was scared and she saw no way out.
He spread rumours about her and successfully turned many people against her. He had spies spying on her so he knew her every move. There were days he'd follow her home. There were days that all this wasn't exciting enough as he would like so he caused a scene at school.
He thought he had ownership of her and she wasn't strong enough to end it all. She was too scared to tell an adult who could do something so it mounted up. Unlike many others though, she did have a couple of friends that supported and helped her through it. But she had a particular friend who knew everything, who stuck up for her through it all, who was the strong one for her, they were a bit of a duo and at the time it was definitely them against the world. They were inseparable and as time marched on and years passed they grew apart and they're no longer in contact but she is forever grateful for the support and love that friend showed her in her darkest days, an absolute angel sent from heaven above because without her, she doesn't know what she would have done. Thank you.
And this doesn't even cover all of it.
At 15, my friend was naive as to the fact that this could be seen as emotional abuse and just thought it was a very nasty thing. But at 15, you don't expect to go through something like that. Although it was a horrible experience and looking back on it isn't a pleasant thing, the experience made her a stronger person and nowadays she wouldn't stand for anything she was put through before.
She also stands for others who have experienced any form of domestic violence, there's a lot of it out there and a lot of it is under the radar. There's people out there to help, but sometimes it isn't that easy to get the help. My friend was lucky, but there are others who aren't and we should all be voices for sufferers of domestic violence.
Lia x
Comments
Post a Comment