Long story short - I was in an abusive relationship when I was 19 (12 years ago) with a 26 year old man when I was living and working away from home. I eventually escaped and got on with my life, and though I stayed in touch with one friend from that phase in my life ( he didn't let me have many), I had not seen or heard from him since.
Whilst I grew up enough to be able to see the wood from the trees and recognise his classic abusive behaviour and realise rationally it wasn't all my fault (as he tried to have me believe), the relationship did leave a legacy of slef-loathing that has led to self-esteem and depression issues. I had to see a counsellour a while back before all the events described later for something unrelated and our relationship seemed to come up a lot for some reason. I guess it was when my life changed from being fun and carefree to a bit shit and troubled.
Anyway, it is not that my life is run by the experience, I thought I was pretty much over it but, recently I noticed that one of my facebook friends was friends with him all of a sudden. Of course I had a look, and his profile was quite new, but the sight of him nearly made me vomit. I was shocked by how disturbed I was to see his face again. To add insult his injury I noticed his sister was facebook friends with my best friend. I couldn't believe it. She has started a new degree and it seems she is on the course too. I have not mentioned it to my friend. She knows vaguely I was in a violent relationship, but she was busy having her first child at the time and anyway I have never spoken to any of my family and friends about the details, or anybody else (until I saw this counsellour in fact).
I never want anything to do with him or his family again, ever. His family hated me, i think they thought I turned him into an angry man - he once started screaming, shouting and threatening me for no reason in front of his mum and she blamed me. I expect they will also blame me for breaking his heart when I left him (despite being 19, he wanted me to stop using contraception and have a child with him and because I wouldn't, nor would I eat friend breakfast every morning to become fat so other men wouldn't look at me - when I moved away for my career he cut me off and never spoke to me again - I eventually realised I had a lucky escape) I don't want his sister finding out my best friend knows me and giving her a poison version, nor do I want to tell my friend who she is, as my friend will no doubt want to defend me and possibly altar the way she is with this sister which will probably cause no end of issues given his nutjob family.
I can't believe this has come back to haunt me. I thought that part of my life was behind me, it was like it was a different life because nothing in my present life was connected to him in any way at all, this tenuous connection has just made it all real again. Someone tell me I am making to much of all this and being a bit silly. I just feel a bit sick all the time, and I can't get his horrible face out of my head, he was laughing in his profile pic and to me his face is just pure evil.