You pretty much described five hellish years of mine when I was with my EXAH.
I only saw the world in shades of grey. I lived in fear and isolation. The violence escalated to the point that I would throw the first punch because I knew he was getting ready to beat me, and I wasn't going down without getting my licks in first.
There was no joy. It was a world of utter hopelessness.
He cheated on me frequently.
I thought I deserved everything I was living with, including the beatings.
Add to that I was also an IV addict and we shared needles all the time.
A series of miracles landed me in rehab, and I was literally dying at that time (109 pounds on a 6' frame and pregnant).
I never went back home to him (rehab was over two hours from where we lived). More miracles happened and I ended up living in (and still do) the tiny town where the rehab was.
Going back to him meant death, either by my own relapse, or him beating me to death.
I got a phone call out of the blue from him about 11 years out of rehab. It was like a ghost from the past.
He asked if I had ever been tested for HIV since I had gotten clean and sober, which I had been when I became pregnant at around 15 months clean/sober while dating someone in AA.
He called to let me know that he was now in the clinical stages of AIDS, and after hearing I was not HIV+, he knew that he had contracted HIV from another woman he was sharing needles with (and sleeping with, no doubt in my mind) during that 30 days I was in rehab. She also had AIDS by then.
That sent chills up my spine.
That would have been my third method of death had I gone back to him. I would have contracted HIV from him whether through sex or relapse/sharing needles again.
Why I didn't contract AIDS during that 5 years of hell can only be attributed to God's grace.
That man died a few years ago at the tender age of 47, complications due to AIDS.
Although we had been divorced for well over a decade when he died, it had a profound impact on me.
Today I know I am a child of God, and you are too. God doesn't make junk, honey. This does not have to be your life.
Sending you hugs of support.
