Does anyone know what happened?

So I know what made me feel depressed for the first time.

When I was 16 I was in a relationship with a 25 year old. (large age gap)

It was rosey and amazing for 1 year until he started bullying me and being really horrible. Being really nasty and horrible to me for no reason at all. He made me feel worthless and inferior to everyone. He treated me like absolute crap and the things he would say to me were so horrible. He was quite jealous and posessive of me... put alot of pressure on me wanting to get married etc and I wasnt ready. He used to ruin my fun all the time and put me down constantly.

Before this I never experienced any depressive feelings AT ALL. I was probably the happiest most outgoing and confident young adult. Everything I put my hand to I would have a great experience from and I LOVED life.

After this experience thats when I started to feel worthless and inferior... I went through alot with what I was feeling and I had no idea what any of it was. I was nasty to the people closest to me and I got very judgemental of other people and what they were doing, got very jealous and insecure. Luckily I ended the relationship with this man because I felt like I wouldnt be here today if I didnt. I felt like I was locked in a cage and couldnt get out - so when I ended it with him I went abit off the rails and was going out alot with friends - I lost alot of weight... I was drinking alot and socializing alot. Thank god Im over that period of my life as I am alot better now!!

I still dont fully understand what happened here and why this happened. Sometimes I dont understand why this happened and for what reason- or exactly what happened. Has anyone else been through this?xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

[hamble99b]

nobody has the right to treat anyone that way, I'm glad you got out of that relationship.

have you ever had counselling about it? or how you have been feeling? it might help.

regards,

hamble.

[Hidden in reply to hamble99b]

Ive had counselling about it yes. And I feel alot better but sometimes I still dont know what really happened - or I cant emotionally process what exactly happened. I only think back to this time because my happiness was taken away from me by him - which I remember very well the point in time when it happened and when I stopped feeling myself. Although I told nobody about how I was feeling I didnt understand all of my feelings so I said nothing. Not even my best friends knew. I had no idea I was being abused by this man that was supposed to be someone I loved and who loved me, he was so manipulative. I dont remember alot of it towards the end because I think Ive blocked it out. I remember once I saw him and I felt physically like I needed to get as far away from him as possible and leave the bar. But then when I was single I felt like a newborn child who was taken away from their mother. It was obviously emotional dependency - he was so dominant on me though in the relationship and I was young... I had no idea emotionally what I was going through because up to this point I'd had no real problems in life and I was happy.... But I was someone else after this happened, I didnt know who I was anymore. And its taken YEARS for me to be comfortable in myself again - probably about 4/5 years. Thankyou for your post hamble! it helps me to write these things down and talk about my experiences! I appreciate your post x

[Findingme]

Hi Pandorapetal,

From what you say, your very happiness could have been your downfall. It might either have come over as pulling away from a controlling partner, causing him to try to reel you in, or it may have made this man afraid you would be doing something he believed was bad for you and he might have been misguidedly trying to protect you. I am very glad you are now free of this man, and I can see you are struggling to make sense of it all. If you believed this man loved you, it would be very hard to reconcile his behaviour with your understanding of love. It will have made you doubt yourself, and doubt your ability to make the right choices in the future, basically taking away your sense of any control over your future.This is a major cause of depression. I hope by breaking down what happened, you will see how you can use this experience to learn about the world, and to make better choices in the future, taking back control in the process.

Here are a few thoughts of mine which might be useful.

This man may have cared for you, but acted in the wrong way to try to help you, which was not acceptable. Or he may have had huge issues himself, and just wanted to keep you around to make him feel better. Also unacceptable.

You identified that his behaviour was unacceptable, but found it hard to fight back as you respected his superior age maybe? Well done for getting away, it is a shame you felt you had to over react in a way that was harmful to you. In future try to keep a strong sense of your own values, rather than bending to others opinions, and then feeling the need to rebel against them.

Try to judge people purely on their behaviour not their age, money or public popularity, and also take your time before getting too involved.