I'm only 20 years old, and maybe I don't necessarily belong in a forum like this, because I know in most cases, abuse involves a man and a woman but... I'm desperate so here goes.
I was best friends with my former roommate for a year and a half, we became roommates my second year of college and everything was fine at first, it was fine, there was nothing wrong there wasn't!... then...things began to change and suddenly my life became hell on earth.
It was gradual at first...but she got in a fight with two of my other friends and they stopped speaking, (she was very opinionated and she really really had a temper but I have this bad habit of trying to see the good in everybody and ignoring the bad so I just ignored that part...) and suddenly..I wasn't able to speak to them anymore. My best friends along with her, and then she started to really...change. I couldn't leave the room without her knowing, I couldn't socialize with anyone unless they were approved friends of hers, one of which was just as bad as her later on but I will get to that later I suppose, and slowly she alienated me from all my other friends, and even my family. Suddenly everyone hated me, she had me convinced so, everyone, my parents thought I was crazy, my sister too, my friends only used me for my stuff and money and you can get the idea. I'm a timid person, a very...timid person and the idea of my friends turning on me was just so horrifying that...I shut down... I was so desperate to keep the few friends I had left that...I went along with everything she said.
Then...the physical stuff began to happen. She'd hit me when I said something that made her angry which wasn't hard. She'd kick me, she'd slap me, she once hit me so hard on the bottom that I had a red hand print imprinted on my skin for a week and it hurt to sit down, and when I screamed at her for doing it she just slapped me in the face. She had to know everything about me, I was going to counseling for other issues, she'd drag me there every week without fail, and then afterward, and made me cite word for word what I told the counselor, so those sessions were useless anyway, I just said what I knew she's want to hear later because otherwise she told me " She's find out and then I'd be in bigger trouble" And when I did finally get the nerve to tell her no and not tell her something she'd jump on me, sit on my back, and slowly begin adding more pressure by digging her knees in my back, and when that didn't work, when I really didn't want to tell her something, she'd grab and pull my hair and slam my head against the wall, until finally I'd just tell her something to get her off me. The worst was when she'd stand on me, I felt like my back was going to break and she's just laugh...
But the worst came near the end... She didn't like Taylor Swift ( You know, the country singer...she just hated country in general I guess)...she'd banned it from our room, and I made the mistake once of not getting my headphones in on time and she heard it and it upset her, and she... put her hands around my throat and squeezed while she was screaming at me to turn it off and the world began to go in and out and finally I guess my adrenaline or something kicked in because I threw her off me, but I still got my head smashed in the wall for it, but... that's the scene that keeps haunting me, for being so stupid and just freezing up and not screaming for help because I didn't think anyone would care or do anything. Stupid I know...but...that's how much power I guess she had over me.
It ended when she failed out, the physical anyway, than the harassment started, she'd constantly demand of me where I was still, she'd start screaming at me when I refused to talk to her, I'd ignore her facebook chat requests, I didn't have the courage to block her because she still had links to my school and could get in, because and I still can't believe this, the very people she claimed hated me, when she left, came and found me and welcomed me back into their circle, said that everything she had said was a lie and just... I felt even stupider.
I kept what was going on a secret, the whole time, and when she was gone, I thought that would be the end of it, but she just kept calling and calling, wouldn't give up, bragged to our mutual friends that when she came back she was going to find me and " bring me back to heel" because I was obviously now being controlled by my other set of friends because I was ignoring the others who used to be in the very room with us when she'd hit me and just laugh along with her. I finally lost it when she was coming back for another visit, and I had run out of ways to run back home, I lost it, had a shaking attack, tried to hide it from my friends, but couldn't, and in one of the worst days of my life the whole story just came flooding out.
Long story short, they convinced me that the only choice I had was to get her banned from the dorm and then my RD ( Resident Director) of the dorms convinced me to go to the police, which I did and now she's banned from campus.
That should be the end of it right? I got rid of her, I won, she's telling anyone who will listen that I'm a liar and she didn't do anything, and then she only did it "to toughen me up". She can't physically get to me anymore, so, why am I still having these shaking attacks, why does the smallest thing trigger this emotional breakdown for me that I hide as best as I can from my friends because they shouldn't have to deal with it!
I've looked and looked and I can't find anything on " roommate abuse" or domestic roommate abuse" and I'm just beginning to feel like I took an issue farther than it had to. I feel like an idiot for going to report it, and a coward who couldn't fight her own battles and instead of punching the witch in the mouth I just ran to the adults like a two year old. Its not like she was bigger than me, I'm a good six inches taller than her, but she still had me cowering in fear. Its pathetic I know, but I can't live like this anymore, everyone around me is calling me so brave...but I just feel like a coward.
Please. Please. If anyone is out there who at least has heard of this please help me, I'm a proud stubborn woman, and this is killing me to have to do this and burden others with my problems. I swore I'd be over this by now, its been two months since I got her banned and I still wake up practically screaming every night and the smallest thing is just a trigger for me to shut down and just... I don't know. I just feel so alone, like no one has experienced this with a friend and not a significant other, and that's I'm just going stir crazy.
So if anyone is out there... please...just tonight I had such a freak out that I ran clear out of the building in the pouring rain and freaked my poor friends out because apparently I was gone for hours and I had no idea of how much time had passed because I was just that upset. I can't do this anymore, if anyone, has any suggestions I will take any at this point, anything. Just...help me. Not to sound pathetic...even though I already do.. OS I mean also feel free to tell me I was a fool too. Seriously I value honesty more than anything, if I made the wrong decision than I'm sure I deserve to know it. I just can't keep this up for much longer, and I don't want my friends or family to have to deal with it anymore.
That's my story I guess. Thanks to anyone who read this...