How do you know there's something wrong

After reading the accounts of abused women, as assigned in class, I couldn't help but think of my boyfriend before Ryan. He was very abusive. He found ways to put me down without me realizing he was giving me a negative self image. For example, he would say, "It's a good thing I love you, because no one else would put up with...". One time I wrote an A paper, he hadn't gotten an A, so he said, "That guy just wants in your pants, he would give an A to anything with tits". Then he looked at the first line and laughed, shook his head, and said, "Obviously not an English professor".

Why would I date someone like that? It doesn't sound like me. Even the abusive boyfriend would call me a feminist, with negative connotation. I just fell into the relationship I suppose. At first, he was great. He even told me I didn't have to work. He wanted me to move to Bowling Green, where he would pay all our bills, and I could take some time off. When I finally agreed, everything changed. Suddenly he was out of money, and couldn't buy me things I needed like soap or tampons. He made me use a paper towel for my menstrual cycle. He would never let me see his bank account, but when he wrecked his car, he bought a new one off the lot with cash, so I know he could afford a box of tampons, but that's how he gained control.

Eventually I got sick of sitting around waiting for him to come home from work or school, and I wanted a job, and to continue my education. He took all of my checks; he said I owed him for the bills he had been paying. Everytime I wanted to meet with an adviser, we suddenly had to take a trip out of town.

He was sexually abusive too. He would pin me down when I was crying, and then make me feel ridiculous for crying. He would laugh in my face and say, "Why are you crying, girl, I'm not hurting you. There's something wrong with you."

He looked at me as an object, not as a personality with history. He didn't love me, he loved possessions.

Eventually I had enough, and so without a penny to my name I slept behind a hotel, where he couldn't find me. Eventually I enrolled in school, and took out a huge loan so I could get an apartment. He transferred schools, because he didn't want to run into me, and he didn't want me to "spread rumors" about him.

I should have known from our first argument, when he said, "Women and men get payed exactly the same in the military. I know I was there. That's a lie made up by feminists". But I didn't know. An abuser is a master at the art of manipulation. They can smell your weaknesses and your strengths and give you a dose of whatever they want you to have. The only way to break free is to regain an image of yourself as a person; remember who you were, and who you want to be. You have to see yourself as a person full of life and experience and not just a body. You are more or less just inside your body. The real you is something else.