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Your reaction from the very beginning. The very very beginning was all your warning alarms trying to go off. Your reaction was a very normal response to an extremely dangerous and abnormal situation.

I realize that now. That very first reaction where I was sitting alone in my bed at home and I realized I was slightly disoriented and I had been silently crying for no apparent reason was the first clue something was VERY wrong. I've only done that ONE other time, when my ex-husband coerced me into agreeing to marry him. I wasn't overjoyed, I didn't feel happy or giddy or excited, I felt scared, pressured, nervous, anxious, I remember not being able to say no. I took the ring and went home and had a complete dissociative meltdown. I remember my dad finding me alone in my bedroom and asked if I was ok. I was a little shocked by his question and realized I was sitting in the dark crying. I told him my exH asked me to marry him. Not happy tears but the tears of someone trapped, very very scared, helpless, & hopeless.

I've been in relationships since my exH. None have made me immediately feel this way before. Not all of my relationships were smooth sailing but none triggered my "spidey senses" like this. I feel like c-PTSD has caused me to second guess my instincts (the gaslighting effect) and I'm still learning to trust myself. The effects of trauma run deep.

OP here. I guess I have more to add now. I went to therapy. I was feeling better. I had a life starting with my girlfriend. She was going to leave him. Eventually. Someday. She had a divorce lawyer there was a plan. I guess he found out we were still "friends" or seeing each other or found out about the lawyer. He turned his rage or whatever his issue is back on me. He sent me more threatening texts. (just two) But also posted my phone number all over places like 4chan and reddit asking people to send me their "darkest rape fantasy" because I was a "horny slut" and specified i only wanted to hear from men. I got a message from someone who sent me a link to the reddit ad Saturday morning. I googled my number to see if it showed up anywhere else but because he censored it (random spaces and ellipses and spelled out numbers) I have no way of finding anything.

I had previously filed for a protective order but found out this morning (Monday) I didn't file it correctly with my county and have to file it in person with all my personal information available to him (address phone number) so moving and changing stuff now does nothing if i go forward with the RO.

I had a meltdown Saturday night i found out that not only was this man still harassing me, stalking me, threatening me and my house and animals. My gf had been telling people, even random strangers, we were "just friends" and that he was her husband. I have no idea why. But the same day as the assault sent me over the line. I snapped and went home to cry by myself. She followed me home and brought her kid into my house while I was in this angry dissociative state and saw my ptsd rage and anger. I feel like *. Now the only reason I tempered all my reactions to him (she asked me to not file the RO to have him removed from the apartment complex) is gone. She doesn't want to be around me anymore. I love her but I have to care for myself first.

I guess this is more of a record still. I'm not sure what for anymore. But it will be here if i need it.

Your reaction from the very beginning. The very very beginning was all your warning alarms trying to go off. Your reaction was a very normal response to an extremely dangerous and abnormal situation.

I realize that now. That very first reaction where I was sitting alone in my bed at home and I realized I was slightly disoriented and I had been silently crying for no apparent reason was the first clue something was VERY wrong. I've only done that ONE other time, when my ex-husband coerced me into agreeing to marry him. I wasn't overjoyed, I didn't feel happy or giddy or excited, I felt scared, pressured, nervous, anxious, I remember not being able to say no. I took the ring and went home and had a complete dissociative meltdown. I remember my dad finding me alone in my bedroom and asked if I was ok. I was a little shocked by his question and realized I was sitting in the dark crying. I told him my exH asked me to marry him. Not happy tears but the tears of someone trapped, very very scared, helpless, & hopeless.

I've been in relationships since my exH. None have made me immediately feel this way before. Not all of my relationships were smooth sailing but none triggered my "spidey senses" like this. I feel like c-PTSD has caused me to second guess my instincts (the gaslighting effect) and I'm still learning to trust myself. The effects of trauma run deep.

some background info I grew up with an UdxBPD/NPDmom and a very abusive, physically violent coercive controlling ASPDexH. I've been through it emotionally. I decided after my exH I needed to focus on me, I didn't date a lot, I was never out looking for a romantic partner. I was content with my close friends, my career and the life I had made for myself.

Warning: This story is a bit complicated, a really really long and TW for gaslighting/emotional control, sexual abuse, & coercion

This time last year my best friend got covid. She was hospitalized for nearly a month and the virus (and the medications she was on) did a lot of damage to her heart and lungs. While she was in the hospital he husband was going out and cheating on her. Multiple times with at least one, if not two people. We have proof of one and he admitted to it but the second was never fully proven but we suspected. Her home life was in chaos and I became her main support system. She was considering divorce but it got complicated because they have a child. Less than a month later she was diagnosed with cancer. And just like that she forgot all about his infidelity, his lies and manipulation. His story changed multiple times over the course of two months. While she may have forgiven him, I didn't. I was silently angry, furious that he would treat someone he had promised to love and cherish like that while she was in the hospital with her life at risk.

Fast forward to spring, her health was declining as chemotherapy ravaged her body. Her lungs failed, her heart failed. She's been added to the lung and heart transplant lists. I'm her primary caregiver since I still work at home and she can't manage a household anymore. The husband finally has a job and is gone for long shifts in the afternoon/evening (his first job in years - he has also made it clear he doesn't like to work and would rather just live off her money, every day is tense when he has to go into his job). During this time I've gotten as close to a person as you possibly can. I realize that I may be in love with her. But I tuck those feelings far away in the back of my mind, I would never even consider making a move on someone in these circumstances especially because I respect her dedication to her husband.

Fast forward to summer. My best friends daughter is off at summer camp for a few weeks. My friends health is rapidly declining. She's gotten bad news after more worse news. One oncologist gave her 30% chance of making it to the end of the year. We're coping the best we can. Something about my relationship with her has changed but I can't put my finger on it. One night I was with both her and her husband, just hanging out having a few beers by the pool and she wants to play one of those silly kid games like "never have I ever" which is weirdly out of character for her. No one is going to deny her anything at this point so we agree. Her first question shocked me, "have you ever had a crush or wanted to be with a close friend and never made a move" I thought she had sniffed out my feelings for her and was making an accusation! I got very uncomfortable and answered no.

At this point he had started being more present in my friendship with her, since she was so sick I was working with him as dual caregivers and almost any of my resentment of his infidelity and lies had cooled.

One week later we were out for drinks together. He unexpectedly made a move on me and while she was away from our table he tried to kiss me. I was shocked. I jerked away asked "what the * are you doing" and ran (sprinted) to go find her. All the feelings about him cheating on her flooded back into my mind. I found her and told her what he did and was on the verge of tears. She calmed me down and told me that she had been talking with him for a while about approaching me about a relationship with both of them. She explained that she had loved me for a while and that he was also interested. I was a bit confused but I was also still very much in love with her. I agreed. This was my first mistake. Because in the back of my mind I still didn't trust him. He was a known liar and cheater. I have c-PTSD from my ex husband and getting into a relationship with someone I've had long standing trust issues with is not a good idea.

Within one week of dating him, I knew something was wrong. He went from being a sort of background noise to being in full HD 360 view in my life. And it made me uncomfortable, I kept having these feelings of impending doom, I knew something wasn't right, but I kept telling myself it was the stress of everything and my own trust issues at play.

The second day of being his girlfriend he tried to get me into bed. I was massively uncomfortable at first but he coerced me (pressured me and played mind games that I didn't immediately see through) into doing more than I was actually comfortable with. I think this is where my mind started to break a bit. One of the ways my ex husband would hurt me was by doing violent and humiliating sexual acts to me. After my divorce I used to "punish" myself by forcing myself to "perform" for people - this was a form of self harm I engaged in. So being pressured into doing sexual acts triggered a bunch of old wounds. Instead of being an understanding kind partner who has knowingly gotten into a relationship with someone with sexual trauma - he got cold and stormed off. The next day he came into my house unannounced (he had my door code) while I was in the shower, proceeded to corner me in the bathroom to tell me he no longer wanted to be in a sexual relationship with me because he was "hurt" by my reaction to him. He said he didn't care that I was uncomfortable with sex but that he couldn't just stop having sex and would continue to have sex with my girlfriend/his wife even if it made me uncomfortable because he "couldn't stop" because he was just now getting her back into his life both romantically and sexually and at this point I asked him if I was being used to "fix" their sex life. He said no, that their sex life was perfect. I said I knew differently because she had told me over the course of a year how distant they had been. He said that wasn't accurate at all despite just telling me that he was "just getting things back". I asked him to get out of my bathroom that we would talk more about it later when I was dressed and able to have a conversation in a better setting. He didn't leave and started going on about how I was inconsiderate of him, and especially of her. How I never thought of anyone's needs but my own and that my trauma was creating issues for his relationship with his wife. He told me I was selfish and that I needed to reconsider my priorities. Then he went all emotional and teary and apologized but that he wouldn't sacrifice his marriage for this and apologized again making me think he was ending my relationship with him. Then he stormed out of my bathroom leaving me confused and hurt.

As soon as I got out of the shower I messaged my girlfriend about what he had just done. She didn't even know he had come over to see me, and said that she would ask him about our conversation. A moment later she relayed that he said I misinterpreted the conversation entirely! That he meant that he loved me and wanted our relationship more than anything and was currently crying that he was afraid he had messed everything up and that I would hate him forever. She asked me to come over to talk to him - so i did. As soon as I arrived he wouldn't talk to me at all. He wouldn't even look at me or stay in the same room. I sat and talked with her about what had happened and told her exactly what he said. She said he had a problem communicating and that he was just "kind of dumb" when it came to expressing his feelings. (this is what he told her, which makes very little sense now because he has no problem communicating effectively with her).

This was the first of FOUR times this happened within three weeks. He would either come in my house or straight up break in by jumping my fence and picking my patio door lock. I had to make excuses for him to my neighbors because they thought he was a burglar. I told my therapist about this and he asked me if those actions made me uncomfortable because of my exH breaking into my apartments and stalking me for over a year after our divorce. At the time I insisted that it didn't but - I was increasingly anxious and starting to feel paranoid without knowing why. I had this sense of impending doom lingering. I felt like I was overreacting to situations when normally I never act like that. I would find myself crying out of nowhere in the middle of a work day.

During the last two weeks of our relationship he would come to me in person and tell me something like "don't come over anymore" or "stay away from her" or "you don't deserve her" that sounded a bit threatening and mean and would hurt me. I would try to talk with him but he would refuse to talk, get angry, and sulk. I can still hear him saying "JUST LET ME GO AND BE ANGRY" right after asking me to work things out. I would end up talking with my girlfriend about it and she ended up being a go-between when he refused to talk to me and relaying what he "meant to say" back to me or sometimes that he never even said the things I KNEW he said. Sometimes I had texts that he sent, I had proof that he had said something nasty - but it was always unintentional or I misinterpreted it and got it wrong. If i ever got an apology it was "well I'm sorry you feel that way" and If i called that out as a non-apology he would get pissed and say "i'm trying to fix this and your correcting my grammar what do you want from me!" Then the other shoe finally dropped when he told me I was being paranoid, projecting the trauma from my past relationship (my exH) and my abusive nMom and that I was unfairly judging him and acting "crazy" all the time now. That I was a danger to my girlfriend and to his family and that he didn't think he could trust me anymore. He shut off all communication for a while.

And then he started making "poor judgement calls" - my girlfriend STILL has cancer. She still has end stage pulmonary failure, heart failure. She's type 1 diabetic now. Without her medications taken on time daily she can die very very easily. She's on constant oxygen as well which has to be from an at home, plug in concentrator because the portable ones aren't strong enough. She's also in palliative care and has been on very strong VERY strong pain killers. When hospice calls and you're told you have terminal cancer - doctors tend to give those patients any pain killers they want.

I get a call from my girlfriend while I'm at work which is very unusual. Usually she texts while I'm at work. She tells me she's in their car (their car that has a blown head gasket) hours away from home. I asked where they were headed, and she didn't know. It was just a small road in the countryside. I asked why they were travelling and she said that he was "extremely pissed and needed to drive". I found out through a text right after our talk that he had gotten up early, given her a double dose of painkillers and put her in their broken car. Without her meds. With oxygen. And driven her nearly 3 hours away to the middle of nowhere. I panicked. I called his phone and sent him texts asking what the heck he was thinking! He never answered or replied until very very late that night and he was mad! At me? I was so confused. I asked what I had done and he just repeated that I had abused "his wife" and that he couldn't trust me anymore and that I was a horrible person and that I had endangered her health again! That she had gone into a seizure in the car and they had nothing to fix it with and that I was the one who triggered it! He just sent message after message tearing me apart and told me I would never see her again that I would never see their family again. That I didn't deserve her. That I didn't deserve to have a family or love. That I was a crazy untrustworthy manipulative *. That I had almost killed his wife and he could never forgive me. He said they had decided together that I was a danger to their family and to stay away.

I found myself apologizing. I felt frantic to not lose my girlfriend. She's been my best friend for years and I love her so much. I was distraught and depressed. I internalized everything he said and believed it. I felt horrible.

I reached out to her and got no reply for days. By then I was getting daily messages from him reminded me what a horrible person I was, and how worthless and manipulative I was. How I had constantly twisted his words to his wife to make him look bad to her and that If I was trying to steal his wife it wouldn't work.

I finally heard back from her. She had been in the ICU for three days. Her lungs had started to fill with blood without her medication and the seizure was triggered by a pulmonary bleed. I apologized because at this point I knew I was responsible. She asked me to come over when she was released and apologized for the misunderstanding about the "road trip" and that she would see me soon. I was so confused because she acted like everything was ok and I felt like my world had been turned upside down and inside out.

I told her when she got home that I had been told to not come over and she just apologized. I didn't know what was going on. I got depressed. Her lack of communication was unusual, we were known to text throughout the day, nearly every day.

This is when the threatening texts started. I started getting death threats from "anonymous" numbers. Sometimes the messages were previous texts he had sent me verbatim. I told my girlfriend and she insisted it couldn't be him either because he wouldn't say those things or because he was with her or didn't have his phone when I was receiving the threats. (and they were explicit threats, how I would be stabbed, burned, shot, how my house would be burned down if I didn't stay away or if I kept talking to her)

Then I came home from work one day and my door was open. I had gotten a few threats while at work that day about my house being burned down and my neck being cut. I finally called the police. I opened two reports. I gave them his information and showed them his texts to me and showed them the threats I had been getting.

They went to talk to him to get information from him. I'm not too sure what went down other than what my girlfriend told me. Apparently he cried, said it wasn't him, it couldn't be him. That he cared about me very much and wanted the police to find whoever was doing this and that his wife has cancer blah blah blah. He used every sob story he could.

He did another road trip incident but this time the car broke down for good. The engine completely blew. I didn't even know they had gone anywhere because I had decided to just focus on me for a while. I knew my mental health was poor and that I felt on edge and depressed. She called me extremely upset and anxious (scared) because she had no medication and was having trouble breathing. She gave me her location when I demanded I come and pick her up so she wouldn't die somewhere in rural texas. I realize now this was a mistake. I should have called law enforcement or an ambulance to go get her and let authorities handle it. But I drove two and a half hours to her location, and thinking I would just leave him with their broke down car was a pipe dream. He took my keys from me and insisted on driving my car back home. I felt like I had no choice but to get in the backseat of my car and go along. I had the similar feeling of not wanting to piss off a very volatile person. This was a feeling I had been having for a while, nearly since the beginning of the relationship. Every time he walked into a room I would tense up. I knew that feeling from my previous relationship. I brushed it off as PTSD. I shouldn't have.

The worst thing for someone with PTSD is being put back in that same situation they were in previously. My exH had a "habit" of getting us into high speed car wrecks. So I'm in the backseat of my own car, watching a man who has threatened my life and said other horrible things to me and dragged the person I love into a very dangerous life threatening situation twice now. I panic. I have a full blown panic attack. He has to pull over to pump gas and before the car has stopped I jump out and start running. I can't explain what that feeling feels like other than pure panic and get away GET AWAY. I ended up vomiting into a ditch for a half hour while my girlfriend held my hair. This is when I realize, while she's talking to me, that she has no idea what's going on. Of course she doesn't. When she hasn't been in the hospital he's been lying to both of us. I realize I have to get back in the car. I have to go home. Also there is a hurricane headed right towards us and I have pets I need to protect.

I get home, I feel so out of sorts, like my brain is fried scrambled and burnt up. I told my therapist it felt like a hurricane that had been set on fire. My brain felt like chaos.

I had more threatening texts when I checked my phone that evening.

I got a message the next morning from my girlfriend to come over to their house. I noticed their door codes and locks were changed, When I finally got let inside my girlfriend said she didn't know I was coming over. I apologized, confused and I realized she didn't look well. She said her health had been bad all morning. I felt awful, again like I had caused this downturn in her health. I finally got to see my girlfriends kid again (I'm super close with them and I had missed them SO much) and as soon as I started reconnecting with them he intervened and pulled them away and got in super close to me and whispered so that no one else could hear that I was hurting/scaring them because of how insincere and manipulative I was, and that they were NOT my family and that I had no right to be there or touch them. I completely cracked. This was my cracking point. I don't really remember all of the events because of dissociation but I ended up in the hospital that day. I spent a few days in the mental health wing.

While I was gone he took over my possessions he had my keys, my cars, access to all of my house. Despite that, being away from him and without any outside communication I felt better than I had in weeks.

When I left, I felt ready to start getting myself back to my baseline. Back to feeling good. But as soon as I left he was right there waiting. He insisted on picking me up from the hospital. I turned my phone back on. I had more threatening texts from more anonymous numbers. This time I told everyone. I reached back out to as many friends as I could. I told my therapists. I told my new counselor and social worker. I joined several abuse forums. All of this because my long time therapist snapped me out of it when he said "this sounds similar to your ex husbands behavior. this is gaslighting. he is gaslighting you."

I showed my girlfriend ALL the threatening texts finally. I'm afraid she may never be convinced its him sending them. She doesn't think he's capable of sending me threats. Either because she doesn't believe he would be that immoral or he didn't have his phone when I got those messages or because we had the numbers traced and they were tracked back to a VPN and he claims he doesn't know what a VPN is. Even after she witnessed, in person, with her own two eyes what he did to me. She knows her own history with him. She knows him to be a liar and cheater. She's now making excuses for that too. Its either all a misunderstanding or it wasn't really cheating. She sways one minute from wanting a divorce to defending his actions. I'm also worried that his "bad judgement calls" when he was taking her on long road trips with no medication to the middle of nowhere were done with bad intentions. I'm worried for her health, for her life. But I feel like my hands are tied. I told my counselors, my social workers. All they can do is report his abuse and the messages to law enforcement and do wellness checks. (all of this has been done)

I'm at my wits end. I'm about to just wash my hands of the whole situation. I feel guilty but I know I can't help someone who doesn't want it. I feel the loss of the people I called family so deeply right now. I love them so much but I can't put my own needs last and continue to be in a toxic abusive situation.

At least It only took me four weeks to realize I was being abused this time. It took me 27 years to realize my mom abused me and 5 years to realize my ex husband was abusing me. Therapy and past experience are what caused my cognitive dissonance when he started gaslighting me.

I'm also using this as an info dump for an "if I go missing this is who to look into" situation and sending the link to anyone I know. The threatening "anonymous" texts are increasingly scary and deranged.

edit: i failed to mention that he's been messing with my girlfriend's kid as well. they have been depressed for a while because of their mom's illness (understandable) and this guy said he made remarks about death, dying, being alone to them (to an 8 year old!) I'm extremely angry about him telling an 8 year old that he will kill himself because that was one of my mom's long standing manipulation tactics when I was about 9-18, She would threaten suicide regularly and go into detail about how she would do it. It was incredibly traumatic. So hearing that he is doing this to a kid and to manipulate them/hurt them is INFURIATING. Again I have reported this to the social workers but they can't do much.

While I can't entirely relate because my situation is a little different, I can say that yours is a totally a bizarre situation and definitely parentification. TBH any form of parentification is bizarre and nasty. When I was 9 my nMom forced me into a parental and counselor role for herself. I was told explicit details about her sexual relationships, and forced to be her advisor and blamed for her rocky marriage to my father and forced to try and "fix it" as if i was a relationship therapist. If I didn't or couldn't advise her to her satisfaction I would receive a "punishment" - which was usually a form of verbal or physical humiliation.  Super horrible and messed up. 

Hi all,
I wonder if any of you had a similar experience...? (I hope not!)

When I was was around 14, my father, being ever more absent and 'furthering his career' (securing himself of necessary narcissistic supply, it was), being away from home in the evenings, returning late at night, ORDERED me to sleep in the parental bed... because my mother was 'so terribly afraid, terrified to lie there alone...'
And so I did. I don't remember to even finding that strange or inappropriate, then. I went to bed, before her, she 'joined me' later on, while my father, after coming home much later, would go to sleep in MY bed.
Is this bizarre, or whát?! A child being turned into his mother's tranquillizer...!
A child who, on a daily basis, got humiliated, got slapped and beaten, was subjected to heinous verbal abuse and annihilating criticism..., that child was made into this sort of 'human presence' to subdue his mother's fear.

The more I think of it, the more really sick it appears.
Anyone on this?

Kingfisher

Hello!

I'm new here (I found OOTS from OOTF) and I'm glad I found this forum. I have CPTSD (I found the clinical definition years ago while reading a blog by a licensed therapist who specializes in PTSD/trauma, brought it up to my therapist and we decided that it fit me better than PTSD because of my traumatic childhood.

(TW going forward)

Right now I'm embarking on some more intensive therapy because I'm starting a new romantic relationship that I really want to work. I have so much trauma from abuse and violence (including CSA, parentification from my nMom and a series of abusive partners/domestic violence/sexual violence) Learning to trust a new partner is really hard but I do feel really lucky to have someone that respects and supports my boundaries and therapy journey.

Lately, I've been having emotional flashbacks as well as night terrors/nightmares (sleep has been an issue since i was a kid) where my new partner is hurting me in the same ways my past abusers did. I've talked with my therapist about it, and I know the night terrors/flashbacks aren't real but they leave me feeling panicked and anxious for hours. If anyone has any strategies for calming down from stuff like that, I'm all ears.

Thanks for reading!