Recovering from an abusive relationship: 'I felt like it branded me'

YOUR LIFE: Every human being has a story to tell. In this series, Your Life features personal accounts by Singaporeans detailing their respective trials in life and their courage to face them.

I met him when I was 16. He’s a year older than me and was a friend of my brother’s from their JC. I consider him my first ‘real’ boyfriend.

It started innocently enough, he was following me on social media and began replying or commenting on my posts. We both play the same sport and we finally met in person at a match. He came over to talk to me, we exchanged numbers and it picked up from there. We dated for five months and he asked me to be his girlfriend right after my ‘O’ Levels.

At first it was amazing. He was sweet, charming and kind. I had never had anyone write me so many letters. He gave me mix tapes and baked brownies and curry puffs for my family and I. This went on for five months.

The day after he asked me to be his girlfriend, he changed completely. We met for a movie and I was wearing a sleeveless top, he made me go home from the mall to change, but what was worse was the guilt he made me feel, as though I had committed a sin. I had never felt so guilty for showing my arms, but he managed to make me feel terrible.

It started with name calling and manipulation, he would scold me for the smallest things, like taking too long to cross the road or forgetting to capitalise the first letter of his name when I text him. He wanted me to be more modest and began controlling who I could be friends with. About two months into our relationship, I realised I couldn’t receive texts from several of my friends – he had blocked all my male friends from my phone and my social media accounts.

He was very skilled at making me feel as though I was at fault. I was young and I hadn’t noticed at the time. I just remember always feeling guilty.

He would interrogate me every time I talked to another boy. He would tell me that if I loved him I wouldn’t be behaving this way, and after scolding me he would make it up to me by being extra kind the next day and bringing me baked goods or presents.

When it was happening, I didn’t realise it was unhealthy. He kept making me feel like it was my fault, like I deserved this verbal abuse. So I let it go on. I let him control me.

It got to a point where I made a list in my phone of the things I could not do, the things that he didn’t like. That’s when I realised truly how much of my life he was controlling and how unhealthy this was for me.

Three months in, he started to hit me, when he could no longer control me with words alone. I remember the first time he hit me – I had training in school and didn’t know he was waiting for me at the bus stop, so I stayed behind to practice with a male friend. He was furious, and hit me on the leg while we were waiting for the bus. He never hit me hard, he hardly ever left a mark, so I didn’t have any proof that he was abusing me.

I suppose I stayed because, while there were very low lows, there were highs that I’d still remember to this day. He would go to extreme lengths just to make me feel special. He would abuse me but then treat me like a princess. I also stayed because most of the time I really felt like it was my fault. Now when I look back, I realised I wasn’t doing anything wrong, but every time he hit me, I would be the one apologising.

He continued to hit me after we broke up. We were in the same school, and he would find a way to talk to me when I was alone and he would hit me for ignoring him or not replying to his texts. There were times when my brother would have to run in to get him to stop hitting me.

My teachers and friends knew this was going on because he began to hit me in front of other people as well. I was scared to go to school and started staying at home to study at least twice a week. The school got involved and both our parents came down, but because he wasn’t hitting me enough to really hurt me – mostly flicking, grabbing and hair-pulling – the school wanted to keep it an internal issue and refused to make a report. We couldn’t make an official report without their help because it was going on in school. I was simply told the teachers would keep an eye out for me.

My CCA teacher helped a lot. She and my coach would make sure we were nowhere near one another during mixed training sessions. We were also sent for counselling, but I didn’t feel like it was helping at all. The counsellor was trying to help me get over it rather than trying to stop him from hitting me.

The abuse finally stopped five months after we broke up. I saw him at the bus interchange recently, and even though he hasn’t been in my life for over two years now, I started shaking and immediately wanted to turn around and run.

I feel like I never got any closure. I just want to know why he did it.

This experience changed who I was and affected all my relationships since then. I used to be a lot friendlier and more willing to talk to new people. Now when I meet new people I feel this is a huge part of me that I’m hiding and I never truly feel close to someone until they know about this experience.

I’m also a lot more paranoid when I meet new people because our circles of friends generally overlaps, and the sport we play is a relatively small community. So I worry that when I meet someone new they might already know and would have formed an opinion about me without even knowing me.

There have been times where I met someone and they knew about this before I even said hello. I feel like it branded me. I try to get over it, but this is something I can’t run away from.

All my relationships since then have been centred around this part of my past. I’m a lot less trusting and my current boyfriend has to avoid certain phrases and certain things that would trigger me. It took me four months to tell him about this, we talked about it for a week. Before then I hadn’t felt ready to be his girlfriend.

I can never go back to who I was, but sometimes that’s a good thing. I won’t tolerate people treating me badly anymore, I’m more selective of my friends, and I’m more willing to drop friends who do not appreciate me. I didn’t know my self-worth, but now I do.

I don’t think I can ever really be over it, but I just hope he doesn’t treat girls this way anymore.

Interview conducted by Jill Arul.

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