Being emotionally abused is just as harmful as being physically abused. Being in an emotionally abusive relationship takes a toll on you whether you realize you are in one or not. How do you define emotional abuse? To me an emotional abuser will tear down your self-esteem. They will make you feel like you are not good enough. You will be afraid to leave this person because you are unsure of what their actions might be.

It's been about a year and a half since my last relationship. I try not to think about my past relationships much. But when they come up, I tend to make a joke about how all my exes have been "assholes." This is an understatement each one of my ex-boyfriends has made me feel like a piece of shit while I have put them on a pedestal they are not worthy of. I would rather be lonely for the rest of my life than be stuck in another relationship I feel trapped in. It seems that with each new relationship I allowed the abuse to get more out of control than the last. I've only had three boyfriends in my 20 years and each of them emotionally abused me in some way.

My first real boyfriend was a cheater, he cheated on me and I let him lie to me about it for almost a year. Yes, I was a freshman in high school but that's when I allowed myself to become a target for emotional abuse. This was only the start of what seemed like a never-ending cycle.

My second boyfriend used everything I said and did against me in every way possible. He would fight with me every night. He'd call me names and tear down me as a person. After this relationship finally came to an end I was no longer the confident girl I once seemed to be. I fought so hard to keep this relationship because I thought that I was 'in love' but every degrading term used against me broke me down to almost nothing.

My most recent ex bypassed the first two and made it seem like the relationship I was in was a walk in paradise. When we started dating everything was fine. Then as time went on I started noticing how poorly I was being treated. It seemed like my previous relationships had conditioned me to being okay with this. I found myself driving him everywhere he needed to go even if I didn't want to. He poked fun of my insecurities and made me feel like I would never find anyone else who would want to be with me. I had tried to get out of this relationship multiple times and each time I was scared back into it by him. Not one moment in this relationship did I feel safe, every moment I was on edge afraid that something I said or did would set him off and I would have to take him letting out his anger on me. Towards the end of the relationship I had gone off to college and this put some space between us. He started to believe that I was cheating on him and began fighting with me almost every day. I finally had enough of the name calling and him taking hits at my self-esteem so I ended things. I continued to be harassed by him. He even began sending inappropriate things to my mom. To this day, even a year and a half after we have broken up he still tries to talk to me.

I don't think my situations have been as bad as it could have been, for that I am thankful. I do believe that if I hadn't gotten out of these relationships when I did they would have escalated into something a lot worse.

I just want anyone who will ever be in a situation similar to mine to know that getting out of an abusive relationship is hard to do but once it happens you are free from constant worry that your significant other will turn on you in any second. You no longer have to be afraid to be alone with someone who you are supposed to be able to trust. I'm still scared from my previous experiences and I have yet to be able to let anyone in. But I'm making strides and slowly building up my confidence again. I know that when I'm ready to put myself out there again that I will be smarter about who I trust and I hope other people who read this article will understand how an emotionally abusive relationship can affect someone to a point where they no longer feel like themselves. They are destroyed to a point to where they have completely rebuild themselves as an individual. Never allow yourself to put up with something so devastating.