Basically I escaped physically, then mentally. It wasn't just a clean break so sorry about the lengthy reply. It took me months, I couldn't break up with him. I had become two different people arguing in my head by now, one saying he's helping you just put up with it, he's a social worker he helps people and everyone thinks he's nice so it's all in your head, and my other person saying this is wrong, this isn't safe, get out. I compromised with the voices and moved to a place closer to my work and studied more and seen him less in order to remove some of his power. It wasn't easy because I wasn't surrounded by help, I was counselling myself through it. Once I began building on my confidence I brought up ideas about counselling for him and tried to let him know what he was doing was wrong, but he couldn't comprehend it. Even back in Australia I hadn't escaped mentally, I still spoke with him. I did it mostly by myself so the process of leaving was complicated and lengthy. I went through many stages of talking myself through what he had done, teaching myself to recognise right from wrong, not accepting all the blame placed on me and building my confidence back up. He changed a lot about me. I still think about him and wish I could see him again and when that happens I have to recognise it and put myself through a process of remembering what he had done and removing all his excuses and only search for the truth, which is not pretty. Sometimes the arguing in my mind lasts a few minutes, sometimes days. Just over a week ago he sent a series of abusive messages to my mother, which sounds terrible but it helped a lot, what he said was so disgusting and low, the voice in my head had no way of excusing his behaviour any more and I know I did the right thing.
Basically I escaped physically, then mentally. It wasn't just a clean break so sorry about the lengthy reply. It took me months, I couldn't break up with him. I had become two different people arguing in my head by now, one saying he's helping you just put up with it, he's a social worker he helps people and everyone thinks he's nice so it's all in your head, and my other person saying this is wrong, this isn't safe, get out. I compromised with the voices and moved to a place closer to my work and studied more and seen him less in order to remove some of his power. It wasn't easy because I wasn't surrounded by help, I was counselling myself through it. Once I began building on my confidence I brought up ideas about counselling for him and tried to let him know what he was doing was wrong, but he couldn't comprehend it. Even back in Australia I hadn't escaped mentally, I still spoke with him. I did it mostly by myself so the process of leaving was complicated and lengthy. I went through many stages of talking myself through what he had done, teaching myself to recognise right from wrong, not accepting all the blame placed on me and building my confidence back up. He changed a lot about me. I still think about him and wish I could see him again and when that happens I have to recognise it and put myself through a process of remembering what he had done and removing all his excuses and only search for the truth, which is not pretty. Sometimes the arguing in my mind lasts a few minutes, sometimes days. Just over a week ago he sent a series of abusive messages to my mother, which sounds terrible but it helped a lot, what he said was so disgusting and low, the voice in my head had no way of excusing his behaviour any more and I know I did the right thing.