Terry's Story: 

ME, BEFORE.  I had a hysterectomy at age 40 making my 40's the best time in life. I have always been strong, self sufficient, smart, capable, independent, spiritually growing. My past relationships all seemed to lack the same element--being accepted for who I was. I am a free spirit. That seems to scare men. In my life, not just relationships, I am loyal, thoughtful, caring, honest, reliable, reasonable, forgiving, optimistic, intellectually curious and always resilient. My faults are that I get bored easily which causes me to seek adventure and a desire to shake things up from to time. I could not find a person who was not threatened by that or even tried to understand that it wasn't a threat. Believing that someday, someone would love me just the way I am, gave me hope. That was my vulnerability. I needed someone willing to manage my full swings of the pendulum without controlling me. Control is the enemy of my spirit. Sexually, I felt free enough to enjoy it and I liked for it to be fun. If I could high-five my partner at the end, that was a good thing. I was confident and self-assured.

LOVE BOMB.  I met him through a friend. When he came back to my house looking for that friend, I invited him in. We talked for 24 hours straight. He asked me questions about me and was so attentive as I answered. I answered all his questions which was basically the long version of everything I just said in the previous section. He seemed, not only to understand, but to share my feelings exactly. Like we were soul mates--a concept that was hokey to me until then. We liked all the same things. No life or relationship subject was left unvisited. All of it was in sync. He was smart, very witty, very funny, my intellectual equal. I enjoyed every minute I spent with him. Sexually satisfying on my every level. We spoke of the future and the things we would do, places we would go, things we would see. We met in May. He always referred to that first season as the Summer of Love. It was exciting and fulfilling.

DEVALUATION  The shift began almost immediately. He moved in with me right away. Drugs were part of our life together from the beginning. They were open. Shared. Not secretive. I had used drugs at different times in my life and I could take them or leave them. When they stopped being interesting to me, I stopped being interested in them. That was always my relationship with them. The first red flag came exactly two months in. I went to the stash and it had been moved. It startled me. I asked him why he had done that. He convinced me it wasn’t intentional. That it meant nothing. I let him explain it away, but I made a mental note: watch for signs of him being a fiend. A fiend cannot live without drugs. That would have been a relationship ender for me. I told him that. Not as a threat. Just as honesty.

Time passed. It appeared to be an isolated incident. That was the first thing. The next thing was his reactions to tiny, almost nonexistent events. Something small — sometimes nothing at all — would set him off. He would go to the bedroom, pull the covers over his head, and become completely unreasonable. If one of these episodes happened before a commitment — even something important — the commitment was blown off. It was childlike. I quickly lost patience with it. I never knew what would trigger it. I never knew how intense it would become. I never knew how long it would last. I have always journaled for personal growth. One day, in anger, I was writing about one of these rants when it occurred to me that I had written these same words before. I flipped back through the pages. The frequency was undeniable. I didn’t know what to do. So I decided to do nothing. The next time it happened, I did nothing. No reasoning. No coaxing. No emotional engagement. I went about my business. Then there was a day trip to a place we both wanted to see. It went south for no apparent reason. On the drive home he drove 100 miles per hour and threatened to go off the road and kill us both. I was terrified. I refused to let him see it. I put my elbow on the armrest, my chin in my hand, and stared out the passenger window in bored detachment. Another time, after a trip to meet his mother went badly for no clear reason, he pulled over on the side of the road and put me, my luggage, and my dog out of the car. Again, I gave him no reaction. On my birthday, he refused to go out with me. I went by myself. When I returned home excited to tell him I had won $600 at the casino, he stood up and yelled, “Why do you always have to be such a cunt? ”Then he went down the hall and under the covers. I went back out with my $600.

Then came the day he became physical. He ransacked the house. He trampled my newly planted flowers — the ones he had bought me — into the ground. I called the police. He ran. The police took photographs of me. Of the damage. Of the flower bed. A warrant was issued for his arrest. He stayed away for several days. Maybe a week. When he returned, he was crying. Head in his hands. He said he had never put his hands on a woman like that before. He said he didn’t know why he did it. He suggested the problem was that we lived in my house. That we should get our own place together. So we moved to another town. Once isolated, the abuse escalated. The rage became more frequent. He blamed me for everything. If I had not done Thing A, he would not have done Thing B. That is when I started walking on eggshells. When he went into one of his rages in public, it became the last straw. I moved into a motel. I refused to go home. He threatened suicide. He said, “That will be on you.” I told him he needed to leave. I suggested he go stay with his sister in North Carolina. It took a month and several more public humiliations before he finally left. From North Carolina, he called constantly. He told me how well he was doing. How he had changed. How he could not live without me. I stood my ground for a while. I told him to stop calling. Then one day a friend said, “Gosh, I wish somebody loved me like that.” That sentence stayed with me. The abuse escalated over the years and through the hoovers. I left him probably five more times. Every time he would show back up with his promises and new love bombing tactics. Each time resulted in new and more atrocious methods of devaluation and sabotage until I had nothing left to give. Nothing. It wasn't until 2019, that HE discarded ME

Discard He had once again worked his way back in with promises. I had managed, with the help of COVID Stimulus Checks and a decent job to buy a P.O.S. mobile home and a used car. When he started destroying my things again, including my car, my job, and my reputation, I told him to leave. He told me through clenched teeth and seething that I would have to evict him. An option I could not afford. I had a 10 x 14 room that was an addition to the mobile home. While he was at work I moved his things to that room and sealed the entrance to the house and told him he'd have to pay rent. That really pissed him off. And he disappeared. Since he destroyed my car I had become dependant on him for everything that required transportation. Namely grocery shopping. His ghosting left me isolated and deprived of basic needs. When my unemployment came through, I had the means to have groceries delivered. It was costly but it was my only option. It ended the deprivation but not the isolation which I struggled with but managed. He came back after I sent him an email saying that his ghosting only resulted in me finding my own resolve again and that was a good thing. He came back then. He stayed in that room. I avoided him at all cost.

When he returned, he knocked on my door and gave me $200. He said it was rent. I took it and shut the door. From the other side of the door he said, "You better be nice to me or I'll ghost you for 6 weeks next time." After that, he started sneaking girls into the room. And the room was disgusting. Knee deep in trash, bottles filled with urine, rotten food, cat poop everywhere. Squalor. What woman would stay in there with him? I wanted him to leave for good, but how? I read somewhere to try reverse psychology regarding the fact that the last thing they want is to do anything for you. I couldn't stand the thought of him sitting in that room. The opposite of that would be liking him there. This is what I came up with: I said to him (through the wall) you know what I like most about you staying here? I can be over here all day talking shit about you and you have to sit there and listen to it. There's not a damn thing you can do about it. He left in the morning and never came back. It was a huge relief to have him off the property. However, he was not out of my life. His presence was evidenced by continuing sabotage to the house and property. Continued discovery of surveillance in my home and yard. Flying monkeys on fact finding missions. There was no line he would not cross and my fear level became crippling. I could trust no one. Police just thought I was crazy. Doctor's too. My next decision would have to be a permanent one. I would have to make huge sacrifices. It would need to be swift and final. I struggled with the sacrifice part of it for a long time. When I saw him circling my house a year later, I new without a doubt it was Do or Die time.  This is the hardest part of my story. I am just going to say it. See if I can possibly explain how he gaslit and manipulated my already tortured mind. He was drugging me. I didn't even discover it until he ghosted me for like a month in 2020. I figured out what the drug was by entering every side effect, together and separately, in Google searches. Worst part, for me, I have no idea how many years he had been doing it. I would complain sometimes about how poorly I felt. He convinced me it was my age catching up with me. But when he was ghost, I didn't even realize how good I felt for those weeks. All the symptoms returned when he did. Talk about revealed patterns. It is so frightening to know that he could have killed me at any time. And that a person can be that monstrous. The prolonged presence of a short-term drug has done some damage that I would believe to be irreversible had God not promised to restore everything that was taken from me.  So I know I will be just fine. There, I did it. I wasn't sure I was ever going to be able to dump that one. Whew what a load off! 

Hoover   there was at least 8 of them. to anyone reading this, that every Hoover allows them to bump up their game and they do and he did. They make you believe that they have undergone some fantastical transformation, and they finally see the light.  but, nah, it is more lies, more strategy, and raises the danger level for you significantly.

My escape  I called my Big brother 1750 miles away. Told him everything. He was there to get me 3 days later. I grabbed three changes of clothes a dog and got in the car. I left absolutely everything behind. Even my most cherished items. Items he would never believe I'd part with. I left the front door wide open. My best guess in doing this was that 1750 miles was far enough away that he couldn't find me--and if he did, he couldn't be bothered. I could only hope.

The drive was traumatic. My body restless, refusing to relax until during transport. The healing didn't begin til we arrived back at my brother's. It was rough. In the year that I put him out in the addition, and the year that he was actually of the property, I made it a mission to do as much healing as I could wile maintaining hyper-vigilence. I owe it all to my Father God and my Lord Jesus who never left my side. Their presence was palpable. Their guidance constant. Their promises of restoration, my only hope and will to persevere. There were days, too many to count, where I did not know how to get through. Yet, day after day, I survived. I experienced short bouts of recognizing feelings from my own self. The short bouts grew longer. The recognition fed on itself to create more recognition. I realized, I wasn't gone, just buried alive under a mountain of toxic waste. Hope grew stronger until I started finding God's strength in me instead of relying on Him delivering His strength every moment. He showed me that my attitude and perception needed to change in order to bring more productive behaviors. That every step needed to be actionable.

The trauma Bond. I read once that it could take your brain up to 30 days to hormonally reset. That was not true for me. It was every bit of 120 days. I couldn't and didn't want to do much of anything but sleep during that time. My conscious time was a rollercoaster ride thru the Foggy Mtns. The ups and downs of the rollercoaster were characterized by short periods of clarity. Like crystal clear recognition of myself. From periods lasting 15 minutes to 2 or 3 hours. I don't know if I have any permanent drain bamage. But my mind is clear today and I feel mostly reintegrated.

 

IMPART WISDOM  No one listens when you tell them to run. That is why this site exists. You cannot be argued out of a trauma bond. You have to see it for yourself. The most valuable advice I received wasn’t from a therapist or a book. It was from a meme. It said: Any experience, no matter how bad, if viewed through the proper perspective, can turn out positive. That sentence moved me out of victimhood. I took a dry erase marker and wrote on my board: Because of him, my faith has increased exponentially. Because of him, I can spot toxic people a mile away. Because of him, I know exactly how strong I am. You are the biggest danger to yourself until the trauma bond breaks. That isn’t an insult. It’s chemistry. It’s conditioning. It’s attachment. So be gentle with yourself. Love yourself. Nurture yourself. And please — do not choose oblivion. Do everything you can to heal. Your destiny — the life God gave you — is out there waiting for you.