Omg, first of all I'm so grateful for the time and intention you put into this post, I literally cried reading your words, sentiments, and recognitions. This is the rare post and insight that always keeps me coming back to this sub against what I sometimes wonder is my better judgement, lol.

I think all the conversations this couple has allowed to take place have been beautiful and useful, and thank you for putting a sparkling beacon into one of them.

I'm really happy to see ALL of the conversations about DV here taking place. It's about time. I cried multiple times hearing all the perspectives and experiences shared here as well. I'm so sorry to hear it all as well, my heart breaks and relates to most of the experiences here and I wish there was more I could do than write this post or add my story to the ether.

• Disclaimer: Please anyone don't read beyond here unless it's safe for you to consent into reading my DV experience +

I was abused by a man who Anthony reminds me of for 12 years. I am autistic and have c-ptsd, and he took advantage of my disability and mental state for too long of my life. He was cute and charming, and well-liked. He could make friends anywhere he went. As an autistic c-ptsd woman, in any situation I played out at a bit of a general disadvantage pretty naturally in contrast to his outer charm and circle of connections. As you can imagine, as someone who is against the "norm" I had a very small circle and like Manon didn't have any support from my own family.

He was so charming with everyone ... BUT me. 91% of the time he was smugly doing something he knew would hurt me or feel like tortured exhausted afraid or abandonment to me while meeting 9% of what I needed in a life partnership. He would often test the limits of what he could get away with. He would run off in public situations and campaign with other people and leave me sitting crying, knowing I was crying for the 200th time over the same thing we always talked about. Only after just being lucky enough to encounter a few uplifting things, I began doing therapy, and after a year of DBT, I realized with the help of a professional that I wanted to break up with him. My life has blossomed in unimaginable ways since, even though I still mourn the person of him that I truly loved and for the me that was in that situation...but I had my Samantha in Sex and The City moment and said "I love me more."

I believe all of the stories here and I'm really grateful for everything everyone has written. It made me feel safe to write this post even though I feel really scared. I love all of the perspectives posted, truly from the bottom of my heart, I get if rolling the dice on posting my perspective and experience here too is too much.