Dear Yuri:

In your original post you wrote that you didn’t realize during the three year relationship that you were emotionally, physically abused. Only after the relationship did you know that you were indeed abused (“But only around two weeks ago I realized that this relationship had been emotionally and sometimes physically ..abusive”).

How it is that you didn’t notice that it was abusive, I ask myself.

You wrote yesterday: “no amount of fear, anxiety or loneliness can feel worse than what we feel when we are mistreated by the person we love”- it touched me, to read this sentence, as I know this pain and it does hurt a whole lot.

This sentence tells me that you did indeed feel badly when you were mistreated by your ex boyfriend, while it was happening, and so, i ask myself again, how can it be that you didn’t know at the time that you were mistreated. I understand that the need for him to love you was intense and clouded your thinking, but over three years, not to know…

You wrote: “I’m quite close to my family and I can’t even begin to imagine how it would feel to be abused by them… I have never been mistreated by my family members”-

It is possible that you were mistreated by a family member or family members, but just as you didn’t know through a three year period that you were mistreated by your boyfriend, you don’t currently know that you were mistreated by a family member.

There are all kinds of mistreatments. Any mistreatment by a person we love hurts, because we love them so much. And there is no person a  child loves more than a parent.

The reason I bring up this painful possibility is that if it is not true, then no harm done by me suggesting it. We don’t get hurt (or angry), as adults, by a suggestion if we know it is not true. But if it is true, it is hurting you, not seeing that truth. Seeing it can help you, a whole lot.

anita