It Doesn't Always Seem Like Abuse

by Christine
(USA)

People fight. It's not optional. But it doesn't have to get physical for it to be abuse.

I became best friends with this girl who lives across the world from me. Everything was great at first, but I started feeling myself getting attached and detaching myself from my friends, basing my schedule off of her being online and that was only the beginning.

At first, we didn't really fight. But one of the first fights I remember well is when she told me that she liked me, and that she knew I wouldn't return it because I was always flaunting how straight I was. I told her I liked her back. I knew I liked her more than my other friends, but I'm not sure I knew if I liked her like that or not back then. She nearly broke up with a girl she'd only just started seeing and, because I wasn't sure yet, I didn't want to ruin something that could be good for them and told her to stay with her.

This went on for a bit, with several spats in between, her blocking me or threatening to on a few occasions. And then she broke up with the girl. We'd been toying with the idea of me coming to visit and I decided that then would be a good time.

But after more than a month of being over there with her, all I had gotten was a drunken peck on the lips. Which was fine. She'd just broken up with someone else. It wasn't until I got back and she told me she was getting back with the other girl again that I lost hope.

I tried finding someone else, tried moving on, and it didn't happen until after my mom died, when I needed someone most, and she wasn't there all that much. I started kind of seeing a boy at work. We got to the point of kissing and touching a bit and on the same day I was going to tell her, she found out from one of my friends. And she was pissed. Pissed and jealous. And she told me if I wanted to keep talking to her, I had to tell the boy about her. She told me she'd break up with the girl.

It was hard, but I told him. She broke up with her girlfriend after that, but it was in a way that didn't really get across to the girl, who kept acting as though they were still in a relationship. And she let it happen.


When we finally got around to acting more like a potential couple, I started telling people around me. I told my closest friends, talked to some of my family, and it was hard but it turned out fine. I'd done it because she'd gotten so upset once that her ex hadn't ever claimed her as her girlfriend online. She wanted her to claim what they were. But when I did it, it didn't seem to matter.

I spent less time with my friends and family - even lost a friend because of what I had with her - and found myself revolving my life around her. Sometimes it felt like she did the same, but then she would snap at something and everything I thought I'd been doing right was suddenly wrong.

Most recently (after she'd considered us a couple and I wasn't even aware), she told me I was too clingy. That I had changed too much and she didn't even know me. That I was pushing all this love crap on her and that she wasn't even interested in all that. She wanted the companionship of a relationship, that was all. And I could care less about sex, but I did tell her that I wanted kissing and for us to claim each other as a girlfriend. She didn't even want that much. She didn't want to label it even though it was what she'd flaunted with her ex.

When it's good, it's really good. But more and more I'm feeling useless and like there's not a thing I can do right. This isn't how it used to be. And yes, I have changed after my mother's death. I've gotten more clingy, afraid to lose someone else that means so much to me.

She suggested I see a counselor, but when I made the move of getting help and told her my plans, it was suddenly wrong that I was asking the counselor for help with a sliding scale fee or a payment plan. Even when doing what she'd suggested, I was doing something wrong.

She's never once hit me, and if she ever tried, I wouldn't just sit back and take it. But it doesn't have to be physical to be abuse. I'm left feeling useless and SO worn down just from little things adding up and slowly getting worse.

I never wanted to call it abuse, but when I counted 18 out of 25 of those as being true, I don't know what else to call it.