Would I be unreasonable for sharing my abuse story?

[glossypeach]

I don’t want to go into too much detail as I’m traumatised and it’s not nice to read. But long story short, my ex abused me the entire two years we were together. I became a shell of a person I was and had a breakdown because of him. I fell pregnant on my birth control and decided to leave him as I couldn’t subject my son to the abuse. During my pregnancy he made threats to harm me, constantly harassed me and made threats for me to never see my child again. I had to involve the police.

When my child was born, I allowed his dad to have supervised contact due to the threats he made, as i was afraid and scared that he was going to follow through with the threats of me never seeing my child again.

Due to this, my ex went like a lunatic and starting posting things on social media treating himself as he was a victim and I was preventing him from seeing his child for ‘no reason’. Everyone treated him like a victim and I got called so many awful names, yet I kept my silence.

It’s been four years since I’ve been with him, and I am really suffering from ptsd and struggling on a day to day basis because of the abuse he subjected me to. It’s been made worse due to the fact that I have to ‘co parent’ with him.

I have kept my silence for years but I think it would help me heal if I told my ‘truth’ about the abuse he subjected me to, and the truth why he wasn’t allowed to see his child. But it’s complicated as it’s my child’s dad and I have to co parent with him. I just feel like I’m never going to heal and people think he is a victim. Would I be unreasonable for telling my abuse story on social media?

I get why you wish to set the record straight but do you really want every man and his dog to know your business? If you wish people to know what he's really like, I assume his friends/family? Then isn't it worth just speaking to them directly?

I am sorry he treated you like this. You're not unreasonable to want to do it. I have the exact same feelings sometimes and they're so very strong I keep myself away from social media until I can think rationally again - rather than react to an urge.

I have found thinking a lot about it that posting with feel brilliant in the moment. And then it's likely to go downhill. Be at case is that the euphoria of having done it wears off. Worst case is lots of replies from people who don't believe me (because not being believed shatters me). And then there's the ex's response.

I try to keep the upper hand. Sometimes I do those annoying cryptic posts where nobody's quite sure what I'm on about.

I try to think that my children may be able to read everything I post one day and would it be fair on them if I write explicitly about their dad before they're adults. There may be better ways to think about it, this is just what I do.

My strong advice to you is to do whatever you can to get to a place where you don't feel the urge/strong desire to do it. For me that's involved trauma therapy. I can't say I never feel those feelings, but they've definitely reduced. As they come from a place of intense pain (you don't tend to think of these things when you're feeling really happy!) working to reduce that pain helps. It also reduces the legacy of his control over you, because that's also sitting behind this.

Please don’t reduce your life to Facebook fodder, it won’t help your situation, will probably escalate his behaviours and you’ll end up regretting it. Concentrate instead on getting yourself therapy for your trauma and on building stability and security for your son. If there are individual people who you feel you would like to give your side to then tell them in person. Don’t make your personal life ‘news’ in between all the usual memes and vacuous rubbish on social media. Give yourself respect and don’t reduce yourself to his level. Anyone who genuinely cares about your welfare will question his campaigning of aggression.

YABNU to want to share, YABU to think anyone else wants to read or listen to it.

Sadly the more that is shared the more peoples eyes just glase over it.

I have spent my career dealing with abusive and violent men. And one thing I’ll say is that their families rarely believe that they are capable, even in the face of evidence.

It’s not worth it, if that I’d your aim.

If you think it would help you heal to share you story with your own very close friends and family, do so. But the reality is that “telling your truth” on social media isn’t likely to garner you any support: most people will just tune in because they enjoy reading a bit of gossip and somebody else’s drama, and will assume you’re doing it precisely to cause drama; and his friends and family are unlikely to believe you anyway. The likelihood is you’ll end up feeling even less validated and supported.