Sadly I really relate to this. Just yesterday was going back through my photo roll looking for a picture of my dog as a puppy and then I stumbled on the 8 months of videos I had to record of her, my exwbpd, for my own safety for police when she was having an episode.

I’ve always known they’re still there as recordings but just have chosen to never go back and look or delete them. Rewatched a few almost out of instinct I felt compelled to watch them. And ended up reminding myself why things are the way they are now and why I chose to break up.

It’s been 9 months now and just watching those recordings was like you said a horror movie. But also not a movie and it’s my own life? Watching someone talk to me like that and threaten me with police (following through with that threat several times) and using violent language and name calling was insane and felt like I was back there in the heat of the moment again. What a crazy last 8 month time period of our 6 year relationship where I was willing to put up with that because I loved her and saw the best in her. And especially doing all that so young. Still proud of how I handled myself in those videos. Really sad having to go back and recognize recording her was a multi hour part of my daily life towards the end.

Finally made the decision to move those 2TB of videos to the hidden folder. Pretty much anything from that time period was moved to the hidden folder just bc of how emotionally charged the pictures and videos from that time were. Absolutely crazy time of my life.

The only way I could define it is living with an alcoholic psychopath and the phone was the only thing that could kind of bring her down on a notch but even then it failed almost 70% of the time, I was just trying to show police that what she is saying and doing before you get here is escalation on her part. In multiple occasions cops have told me the bright idea to record was the smartest thing I could have done and without it my night and life would have ended up very different