The hidden reality of emotionally abusive relationships

My Story, written and compiled by, Ana Fazzina

November 9th, 2024

Why now? Why speak up about my relationship and engagement 4, almost 5 years post breakup?

This years 2024 election results once again shed light on the sad and sick reality that White men who assault, abuse both verbally, emotionally, physically and sexually can still be in positions of extreme power. Women all over the country, the world have seen and experienced first hand just how easily it is to silence us.

I myself spent many years being silenced. Being afraid to speak up and share not only my story, but my experience dating, loving, living with and being engaged to somebody who not only was incapable of feeling and communicating his emotions, but belittled and shamed me for feeling and communicating my own. 

One thing about emotional and psychological abuse is it takes time for your mind to process, understand and come to terms with the reality that someone who once claimed to love you, in fact, really did not. 

We met in the early fall of 2013. It was my first time being away from home for a long period of time. I had just started my first year at CCSU. We lived on the same floor, only a few doors down from one another. I had knocked on his door one evening to ask if anyone in their suite had a deck of playing cards. They did. I asked if he and his roommates wanted to join, so they did. 

It wasn’t much longer after our first interaction that he started perusing me. To be completely honest, I didn’t like him like that. I wasn’t interested in dating. I was 20. In college. Away from home for the first time. I wanted to have fun. He and I became friends. We shared a friend group and before you knew it, we were all hanging out all day everyday. Naturally he kept pursuing, and I gave in. He seemed so sweet and innocent. Not like your typical baseball player. He practically begged me to be his girlfriend. Nobody had ever wanted me that badly before. I figured I should give it a shot, and so I did.

Our first date was perfect. Out of a movie. He had planned the entire thing, even down to how he would borrow his mom’s car.

I was handed a single red rose and we headed to Frank Pepe’s in New Haven in his Mom’s white Jeep Liberty. When we arrived to Pepe’s we talked about our favorite kind. To which he said, just so you know, we’re ordering a large and eating the entire thing. I don’t know why that made me feel comfortable. Maybe because for the first time ever I felt like I could just be myself. I didn’t need to portion out my food, I could just be me. I felt safe. 

That first date was the start to many more and many years of what was truly a happy relationship. Or so I thought. By now, he and I were truly infatuated with one another. We spent every waking moment together. I will however say that I was not used to that. I still wanted my me time. I wanted to see my other friends. I wanted to go to class. He on the other hand did not want or need to. He was okay with being by my side 24/7. 

That’s the thing, these abusers, these relationships, they latch onto you. They make you think you’re so special they can’t live without you. Before I knew it we were fully immersed in each others lives. My first and only year at Central we spent every night together. Once my year at Central was over I moved back home because I was on academic probation. Why? Because he and I spent so much time together, class was the last of our issues. 

Fall of 2014. I start my first year at Eastern. By this time he and I have been together for a year. We were practically living together in his dorm room the year prior. 

Because he was still at Central and I, now at Eastern our schedule and living arrangement changed. Instead of living together in a college dorm, we both now lived at home with my parents. By this point things were still good. We didn’t argue, we didn’t fight. Things were blissful. The first almost 2 years of our relationship we didn’t argue once. We didn’t fight, we didn’t disagree. It was perfect. 

2015 and 2016 I don’t remember much to be honest. I know I was still at Eastern, he at Central and we were both still living with my parents, at my childhood home. My family had taken him in as their own. He and my mom had their own relationship, however there was no relationship between he and my Dad and Brother. Which I now realize just how weird and disrespectful that was considering he lived with us, ate with us, vacationed with us.

We’re now in the summer of 2017. We’re in Norway. Myself, Person we will not name, and 3 of our friends were on our way to visit 2 of our friends we had met in college at Eastern. That’s another thing, all of my friends had become his friends. He didn’t have many of his own friends. I was the extroverted, social one so I typically made the friends, he tagged along. 

Norway, summer of 2017. We had been there for only 3 days when my best friend at the time woke me from a nap sobbing. She had found a journal at the bottom of her and her boyfriend of 8 years shared suitcase. It was a journal with handwritten entries to one of our other friends we were visiting. It very quickly became the most uncomfortable vacation of my life. I was forced to know exactly what had happened, what was said, but forced to keep it a secret from not only our friends who’s homes we were staying in while we were visiting, but from everyone.

I was okay not telling everyone what happened. It wasn’t my story to tell. I did however think someone owed the two girls an explanation of some sort seeing as we were in their country, in their homes, in their space but one never came. 

I spent almost two years holding onto this secret. Protecting it, protecting the guy who had written this weird, inappropriate journal. At this point I was disgusted with him and done with the friendship. I had lost all respect for him. He spoke about his salary, how successful he was, how important he was. Mind you, he was not. 

When I eventually ended this friendship, I ended this friendship in true but unfortunate Ana Fashion. I blew it up. My ex was on this trip with me. He saw the entire thing from start to finish play out. To say he was not happy when I ended the friendship would be the understatement of the century. He was NOT done being friends with somebody who was okay doing what he did, he was not done being friends with somebody who forced me to stay silent. This to me is where our relationship started to breakdown. 

By this point I had lost respect for the situation and I had lost trust in my boyfriend. I felt betrayed. He knew the secret I was holding, he knew how I felt about the situation, and yet he still chose this male friend over his girlfriend of 3 1/2 years.
sadly, you will notice this is a reoccurring theme. 

I look back and wish I had handled the ending of that friendship differently, I do understand why he was upset with my delivery, of course. Not my finest moment. However in my mind it was the principal of the events that took place that I couldn’t wrap my mind around. How are you going to actively continue a friendship with somebody you know did that to their girlfriend, but then also dragged your girlfriend into and forced her to stay quiet.

Where was his loyalty and respect for me?

Unfortunately, this was not the first time he let his friends act poorly towards me. When he and I first started dating, remember he had pursued me. His friends made a meme of an old school Milk Carton with a picture of his face, reading “Missing” and sent it to me. As if I was the reason he was no longer around. What his friends failed to understand was he willingly immersed himself completely into my life. This wasn’t my doing. I showed him the text and he laughed. He said, that’s just how they are. Not once did he stick up for not only himself, but for me.

His roommates and the baseball players are another example of the men in his life outwardly making fun of me and disrespecting me because of how much time he and I were spending together. What all of these people fail to understand is I did not force him. I wanted my alone time. I needed my alone time. He however, WOULD NOT leave my side. ever. 

The love bombing in the first year felt genuine. I didn’t know what love bombing was. He was soft, he was gentle, he would listen to me, he would comfort me, he would validate me. I had never had that from a partner before. Only my parents. 

Little by little as the years progressed, the validation of my emotions and feelings stopped. The arguments and disagreements started happening more frequently because I couldn’t get over the fact that I didn’t feel heard, seen, respected or understood.

I so desperately wanted to know what had changed, what I did wrong, why he would ignore me for hours on end if I cried. A relationship that had once felt so safe, so secure to me became a place of judgement, fear and a toxic cycle of constantly trying to be enough, do enough to maintain this persons love. 

I walked on a tightrope for years. Always trying to be the best, to control my emotions, to not be too loud, too happy, too sad. You see, any emotion of mine at some point became too much for him to understand. I had once been his best friend, his soulmate, and now I was this ugly monster he couldn’t stand.

I still to this day couldn’t tell you what exactly I had done to make him lose all respect for me. To make him push me far enough away to never know where he stood, how he was feeling, but close enough to keep me sucked in. Wanting more, begging to understand why he didn’t love me like he used to. 

When people often think about abuse they think of physical abuse. That is not my story or experience. Instead I suffered emotional, mental and psychological abuse in the form of silence. I would be ignored for hours or days without knowing why or what I could do to make it better. I suffered in the form of communicating and talking in circles with somebody who was never capable of taking accountability or apologizing. Somebody who was dead set on not wanting to understand my perspective, mind or heart. I suffered in the hands of somebody who took pleasure in ignoring me, not validating my feelings. Actively choosing to ignore me, knowing it was hurting me.

I spent so much time in my head wondering what I had done to deserve this. I would have done anything to make him love me, and so I tried. I stopped listening to the kind of music I liked, because he didn’t like it. I started crying in the bathroom with the door shut because any sign of sadness in me was too much for him. I was overreacting. I was dramatic. I was crazy to be feeling this way.

I started asking him how to perceive and understand my emotions because I figured if he never showed an ounce of stress or sadness he surely must be doing something right. I must be the problem. I’m too emotional. I’m too sad. If he could tell me, teach me how I should be feeling than maybe I could learn for myself. I looked up to his stoicism. I thought it made him mature, rational, level headed. Little did I know, it wasn’t maturity, it wasn’t rationalism, it wasn’t being level headed. It was an inability and a complete lack of ability to feel, express and communicate his emotions. 

I was confused. This man whom I had loved so deeply, used to be warm, soft, kind, understanding had now turned into my biggest bully. I didn’t understand how somebody could turn off their heart so quickly.

Of course I wanted to understand, so I kept trying, kept asking what I could do differently, kept changing myself so he would like me again. Love me again.

We had talked about marriage, children, buying a home. He was the person I wanted a life with. A family with. 

The years continued, the arguments continued, the silent treatment continued, the invalidation of my feelings continued, the never apologizing continued, the failing to see my perspective continued. It had gotten to a point in our relationship, and my mental health that I was grasping for anything He would give me. I started gaining a significant amount of weight, my scalp started getting greasier than it had ever been, and I was washing it normally, I was breaking out in hives, my hair was also falling out and my mental health was at an all time low. I had gotten to a point where I knew I could no longer ask him to help direct and understand my emotions because he was the one fucking with them. I had to ask outside forces. 

I started asking my mom if I was normal. The thing about these emotionally abusive relationships is you lose the ability to trust yourself. To think for yourself. I was at a point in my demise where I had to ask my mom if I was genuinely crazy more times than I’d like to admit. I cried in my mom’s arms or on the phone sobbing, asking her if I was normal. If I was okay. If I had gone crazy. 

I’ll never forget, it was may of 2019. 1 am. At this point I knew I needed to get out, to leave. I knew I wasn’t safe any longer. I went out to my car in the apartment parking lot, because at this point we had already been living alone in our first apartment together. I went out to the car at 1am and called my parents house phone because I needed them to wake up. I needed both of my parents to hear the sheer heartbreak and fear in my voice. I needed them both to calm me down, to comfort me. 

I stayed in that car for 2 hours crying on the phone with my parents asking them why I wasn’t good enough begging them to please take me to a hospital because I had surely lost my mind. I was in a state of absolute mania because for the last 2 years I had lost myself trying to change and be better for someone who didn’t care whether I changed or not. It wouldn’t have ever been good enough. I went into a manic state due to the lack of my ability to hear, process and trust my own thoughts, feelings and mind. My entire self of self had been ripped out from under me and I was at rock bottom. I knew I needed to start the process of healing my mind enough to be strong enough to leave. 

I stayed for another year, slowly trying to build up the courage to leave. To stop loving him. Naturally he grew more distant, more emotionally detached, and I kept chasing after and begging for scraps. We were well engaged, living together and had been together at that point for about 5 /2 years. I didn’t want to walk away and lose this dream life we had talked about and planned. I didn’t want to lose this driven, will one day be successful man. I knew in my heart I didn’t love him. I knew I deserved better, but I struggled with the idea of leaving and losing him to somebody who would one day get the man I built, made and shaped. That somebody else would get the version of him I deserved and wanted. 

Leaving a relationship you know is wrong, toxic and unhealthy is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I left a relationship with somebody I loved with every fiber of my being. Somebody I grew with, aged with.

Leaving a relationship with someone I knew did not respect me was one of the bravest things I’ve done. I don’t know if it was the constant belittling of myself I experienced from him and his friends, the constant lack of empathy towards me or the continuous silent treatment that pushed me to leave but I am forever thankful I did. Nobody deserves to be silenced, made fun of and picked apart from the inside out, to have their sense of self and ability to trust themselves ripped out from under them. Nobody deserves to have to call their mom every time something happens for two years because you don’t trust yourself enough to interpret, understand and process your own emotions. 

Being in this relationship taught me that nobody is ever worth losing yourself. Nobody is ever cool enough, smart enough to pick on me ever again. Nobody is worth locking myself in the bedroom or bathroom for hours on end crying myself to sleep because the person I love, and is supposed to love me refuses to comfort me, validate me, listen to me, apologize to me. 

I spent a lot of time after this relationship working on regaining my ability to trust myself. Working on my ability to speak up. There is something so terrifying and sad about not being able to trust yourself. To not know which is up from down, left to right. 

Emotionally abusive relationships often times play a different role in the psyche, than physically abusive relationships.

Physical abuse can often times be seen. There may be more obvious warning signs. 

After having lived and experiencing an emotionally abusive relationship I can only share with you my experience my story, my warning signs, what to look for. 

Abusers will often latch onto you quickly and intensely. 

Abusers will love bomb in the beginning. They will make you feel like the most important, special person in the world while then quickly and without warning, rip the rug right from under your feet with no explanation as to why.

Abusers will guilt trip you for asking what changed and why.

Abusers will slowly start to belittle you, pick at your intelligence, hobbies, sense of humor, tv show you like, music you listen to, clothes you wear. They will make you believe there is something inherently wrong with you. Like you are broken and they need to fix you. They are the knight in shining armor.

I learned that sometimes the nicest, the most emotionally stable, smartest guys, are actually the most insecure. The most emotionally unavailable and the most emotionally unintelligent individuals you will ever meet. When somebody tells you first hand they don’t think they are capable of feeling, feelings, believe them. Do Not be like me and think you can fix them or change them.  Slowly back up, and run. Run as far as you can, as fast as you can. 

I’ve struggled to share my story for quite some time now because As you have all heard by now, I didn’t trust myself enough to understand what I had gone through. I kept trying to convince myself that what I went through, what he did, how he treated me was my fault. That if I had just somehow been better, none of this would have happened. 

I wanted to share my story to give real life, intimate insight to the mind of a psychological, narcissistic abuser. To help educate those who may not know the warning signs, but to also give myself a safe space and a platform to share my truth. My voice. 

I have been silent for many years, in fear of backlash from him and his friends. Mostly afraid of being called immature, dramatic, crazy yet again. But also still grappling with the reality that what I did experience was in fact abuse. It took so many years of sitting with what had happened, years of crying myself to sleep asking myself, wondering what I could have done better or differently to make him love me that I finally realized there was nothing I could have done. When somebody gets off on actively choosing to misunderstand you, bully you, insult your intelligence, there is nothing you can do to change their mind, except to leave and heal. 

This was phase 2 of the breakup. We had broken up once prior for all of like 3 hours. Until he eventually texted me to come back. That he couldn’t live without me. Of course I went running back home to his arms. I wish I hadn’t. Nothing changed. The disrespect, the inability to communicate anything of substance with me continued. We were at standstill.

the next, more official phase of the break up was Sunday March 7th. Almost exactly 7 months before our wedding in October. He had just gotten out of the shower and dressed when I looked at him and said We need to break up. I wasn’t happy, he wasn’t happy and it needed to be over. I packed up my Honda CRV with as much as I could and booked it home, back to my parents home. 

We took some time apart to cool off, to process what had just happened. We had agreed we would speak in a week, but needed a moment to ourselves. 

A week later, it is now Sunday March 15th, 2020. I text him to see if he has time to speak. Ideally, if we were going to be over for good, I wanted to just get it done with. I text him to ask if he is ready talk. What was his response you ask? Well, about 2 hours later, I get a response back saying “sorry I can’t right now. I’m playing X-box with the boys.” Even when he was sick of me and wanted nothing to do with me any longer, he still refused to release me. To give me any sense of closure.

We broke up Sunday March 15th, 2020 over a phone call. After having spent 6 1/2 years together where he lived with me for the entirety of our relationship we broke up through a phone call with not a shred of dignity, respect or empathy towards me.

After that day, he was a ghost. I was dead to him and I was no longer in any realm of his reality. All photos of us had been deleted immediately, I was blocked on all socials, even down to Venmo, and my existence since that day has forever been deleted in his memory. 

I will never understand how somebody who claimed to love me can so easily and quickly erase me from their entire mind, memory. How somebody I spent 6 1/2 years loving could turn so cold. So evil. So fast. How somebody I was set to Marry in 7 months could ask me to delete our wedding registry offline, delete any shred of proof that and he I were together. 

I will never get the closure I deserve and I will never get the apology I deserve. The complete lack of respect and communication is abuse. It was abuse in the way he broke me down to a shell of myself. Not knowing who I was, if I was truly sane or insane. it was abuse in the way he completely discarded me as if I had never existed. Evil. Pure evil. I had never done anything significant enough or damaging enough to deserve this treatment. I loved him. I supported him. I was his biggest cheerleader. I took care of him. I helped push him to be the best version of himself he could be. And in return I got ignored and torn apart from the inside out.

Thank you for sitting here with me today. For letting me share my story.

with the biggest hug, Xoxo-Ana