One incident, when I was trying to help, and there was something I didn't understand, he said "don't be a woman who needs a man, but be a woman a man needs." Secondly, we were at a grocery store getting food from the hot bar. I experienced verbal abuse throughout the course of the relationship. Verbal abuse felt like a chain holding me down when all I could see out the window was a different, happy, courageous life that couldn’t be reached. When we are in the thick of it, verbal abuse can even affect what is and is not reality. To this day, certain words set off panic, grief, and visceral reactions in me. I was consumed by pain, depression, paranoia, guilt, and fear. I was only a shell of who I really was, and I believed what he said to enough of a degree that I started putting on a mask. I had consumed the verbal abuse for so long that I had thrown most of my true self away. Toward the end, he started verbally embarrassing me in front of both deaf and hearing people. He'd whisper names or threats in my ear when I was with friends, scream awful things to gain attention if I walked away, sign threats and cruel comments when no one was looking, and text me constantly to call me names and remind me that I was worthless. I don’t deserve to see my family.” This became a weekly mantra, occurring each weekend, especially if I was invited out with my friends. I betray my boyfriend when I dress trashy. I am disgusting when I am with my friends. I was often required to copy him in both English and ASL, saying, “I am a whore. Sometimes I even had to repeat them out loud, and even then, he wouldn’t stop. He'd force me to sit and listen to him scream the stories in my face. He began to create graphic stories of things he thought I'd done with friends or other men.
As it grew worse, the words became manipulative. Little did I know, this was only the beginning. He would tell me how pathetic I was, how I couldn’t keep up with him, how “ugly” and “trashy” I looked in every single outfit, and how I was the worst girlfriend to ever walk the earth. As the tone in his voice became more malicious and his volume rose, the signs would also change from casual and calm to forceful, threatening, angry, and directly in my face. My abuser was deaf, so the verbal abuse came in the form of both spoken English and American sign language.
The verbal abuse started with him calling me disgusting, whore, slut, bitch, and a liar. It began in only the first few days of knowing each other.
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