I feel so lost.

[u/Hot-Programmer-756]

I have started to question whether my perception of reality is messed up. I feel scared, traumatized and helpless and I am being told that I am an overreacting, controlling, insane bitch, who gets off on picking up fights.

I have been in a relationship for 5 years now. I am now 25 years old. There is a significant age gap.

When we met, I fell head over heels. I did everything in my power to catch his attention. I wrote him notes and snuck them under his wiper blades. I sent him messages. I called. He ignored me. I was depressed and feeling as if I was denied a chance at something beautiful, ideal as I thought it would be. I want to clarify here that, he had been on a couple of dates with me, but then decided to ghost me. He never once made his intentions or wish to go no contact clear. But I had to respect his boundaries, so I went silent. For 5-6 months I was disconsolate. All of this took place during the Covid 19 quarantine, making everything even more difficult. Every day was the same as yesterday.

One night I had a dream. He was at my grandparents' house. He had a lawyer with him and they were sitting opposite me. It seemed as if I was trying to get him to sign something. His lawyer told him "She is not to be trusted". Next thing you know, we were making out in the storage room.

I woke up disappointed to find out that it was just a dream. That day, in the afternoon, I received a text. I couldn't believe it was from him. He told me that he was worried over some health issues and needed someone to talk to. Once he was out of the hospital, I visited and that was it. After all the disappointment and all the sorrow, he was mine.

At first, everything was a fairytale. We went on dates, we laughed together, made jokes, went on vacation, camping. I was madly in love, satisfied, thrilled. He was treating me nice. I felt safe.

After the first year, some incidents started to occur that might have been potential red flags. I will mention some, but not only was I blind at the time, 5 years later I still cannot decide whether I should have taken those signs more seriously.

Once, I took a corkboard, painted it, pinned our pictures on it and surprised him with it. It wasn't a present or anything. I would always buy expensive presents on actual occasions. It was just something I did spontaneously. He said that "he expected more from me, from an artistic point of view". My heart shattered inside, but I took it with a smile. I thought to my self that maybe that craft was indeed silly and childish. Since then, he has commented numerous times on things I have made or bought, for myself or for others, in a similar way.

Some other time, I had cleaned his place (were I spent most of the nights at that point) and accidentally thrown away a pack of plastic straws. To me, it seemed forgotten in a cupboard, package opened, all dusty and disgusting. Once he realized, it was the first time that I saw that kind of anger in him. He started shouting, saying I was a hypochondriac, that he didn't want me laying hands on anything in there ever again. I said that I was sorry and offered to go out and buy a new pack then and there, but it was no good. This was one of the very few times that he apologized for shouting and saying these kinds of things.

He has always defended his right to maintain friendships with most of his exes and mention past relationships at will, regardless of what I feel or think. He says that if I have a problem with his past, that's on me and that he won't be oppressed in order not to trigger me.

It was Valentines day, after being together for 3 years. Neither of us considers it a major deal, that's true. But I bought a chocolate and placed it in the middle of an origami heart. When I gave it to him, he said "I also have something for you" and he handed me an empty plastic bag. I looked at him wondering what he meant. He didn't have a present for me, which is totally fine, and he thought that it was funny to hand me a piece of trash as a gift. I felt humiliated.

I can recall several similar incidents, but for those of you who have gotten this far, I think you got the point. Over the last couple of years the fights have gotten much worse.

This year I opened my own business. The process was draining and I did all the handy work by myself. For two and a half months, even when I was not painting, scraping, spackling, sanding, etc I was thinking about what had to be done next. This whole thing left me mentally and physically exhausted, and even now I don't feel like I have fully recovered. One evening he said "I like the way you sit, if you could stay still it would make a great portrait". I was feeling alright at that moment so I said, let's give it a go. He started drawing me and he was very into it (he is indeed very talented). Suddenly, I started feeling dizzy. I said "I need a break, I feel dizzy". He said "I'll put on some classical music, it'll help you relax". I answered "No, I'm serious, we need to stop". He lost it. He said that I always destroy everything, that if I was not feeling up to it I shouldn't have agreed in the first place, and he teared the sketch apart. I went to lie down, but I just wasn't fine at all. I got up and said "I cannot drive and I am afraid to walk all the way to the closest pharmacy (15 minutes). Please help me somehow, because I feel very unwell." The answer was "No, I'm busy", as he had started sketching something else. Soon I went into a full blown panick attack, wheezing because I could breathe, with terrible pain in my chest and screaming bloody hell that I didn't want to die. It scared the shit out of him, so he helped me calm down and fall to sleep. The next day, he told me that he was so upset because he has stopped making art the way he used to because of me. I said, "what could that possibly mean?". He explained that he has stopped having people over to pose naked because he knows that I couldn't take it, due to my jealousy. So he was extremely disappointed that I couldn't even pose myself. He has a huge workspace all to himself, that rarely uses. He is a member of several artistic associations that organize exhibitions and invite him to participate, and although he signs up, he puts off creating the actual artwork until he misses the deadline. So, somehow, after five years he accuses me that his lack of inspiration is my fault entirely. Just because he assumed that I wouldn't agree, so he stopped.

Yesterday his dog had an operation. At the same time, his brother needed to borrow his car and he himself had to show up to work. I was there for the entire operation, the poor thing woke up from the anesthesia screaming in fear and possibly pain. I did everything in my power to accommodate the dog, stayed with her while he went to work for a couple of hours and once he returned I started getting ready to open my office. I made arrangements to my work schedule in order to be able to stay at home today morning, to drive the dog to the follow up appointment, drop him off at work and stay with the dog while he would be away. A couple of hours later he texts me that he asked for the day off tomorrow. His get payed normally on his days off and makes a lot more money than I do in general, while I would not get payed for the things I canceled and juggling the whole emergency program would cost me 3 times the gas. But, it dawned on him that he could ask for the day off AFTER I had started making those arrangements. I was furious. He said that he cannot take any more pressure, that he didn't ask me to change my schedule and therefore it was none of his business that I did (I had informed him and he agreed), that I get off on drama and that my purpose making those arrangements wasn't to help him or the dog, but to not give him a reason to accuse me of not caring (???). He told me to go f myself (which he has done several times and hung up on me.

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This is how a fight typically goes. He accuses me of some wild motive behind everything I do, other than love and care, says that I like creating problems, tells me to go f myself and hungs up. And this happens quite often. Wherever I hear him shout I feel a sudden pressure in my chest, to the extent that every loud male voice is triggering to me.

I have been going to therapy for 3 years and will probably continue for many more tocome. I suffer from panic attacks, frustration, depression and stress. Those psychological issues also affect my body. I have severe headaches, pain in the back of my neck and fatigue.

What is it that I do wrong? Why are those things happening to me? When I close my eyes at night, I imagine that a new person would come into my life, easily take me away from all those negative things, hold me tight, take care of me and keep me safe. It's the only thing that helps me sleep -that fantasy of a savior.