This is a story of how a 33-year old woman from Ipoh realized that her partner was abusing her mentally and emotionally, convincing her she had schizophrenia. This is her story of how she figured it out and left the relationship.
I met Alex (named changed for privacy) while I was still in university. He was a couple of years older than me, in his late twenties. In the first few months of knowing each other, he was the most gentle and loving person I had ever met.
He made me feel safe to open up and talk about my abusive childhood with my mother and was always there when I needed someone to talk to.
When we were first dating, he always took care of me, giving me gifts, taking me out and making sure I had everything I ever wanted.
For someone that grew up with pretty much nothing, he was heaven sent. I figured out now that he was love-bombing me.
After I finished university, he asked me to marry him and move in with him at his apartment. He had a 3 bedroom apartment and was living alone, and he said he would love to come home to me every night. That was when he started to change.
The gaslighting begun early
I married him within 4 months after meeting him. In hindsight this was way too early, but I was a 22 year old with no job and not wanting to move back in with my parents.
I was desperate to start my own life outside my family. We registered our marriage but never had any ceremony as I was estranged from mine and his family was not living in Malaysia.
The gaslighting began with really small things that seemed stupid but was his tactic of making me doubt myself.
For example, I would say to him something like, “Oh, remember that movie we watched the other day…” and he would deny that we’ve watched the movie before.
He would ask me if I had dreamt it because it never happened. This kept happening up until the point I thought I was really hallucinating these small things like where I had been or what I had eaten.
He sometimes would also move things around in the house or the car, denying he was the one doing it and that I must be really forgetful or imagining where I put my things. I would find my shoes under the sofa or my keys in the fridge.
Once I even found a stack of my clothes in the freezer.
He denied all of this, convincing me what motive he had for placing my things in those places. It made sense, what possibly could he get out of it?
I truly was at my wits end, convinced I might be having a memory lapse that I was unaware of. He even convinced his friends to mess with me, talking about meet ups and dinners we never had.
Once, the whole group talked about a holiday we all took and they even went to the extent of creating a photoshopped picture to “prove” to me I was going crazy for not remembering it. This went on for almost two years.
Medicals check were a dead end
Growing up with mentally unstable parents, I got really anxious over the fact I was losing my memory or remembering things that never happened. I finally went for a bunch of medical check ups and CT scans and MRI. I also went to a psychiatrist.
None of them could figure out what was wrong with me.
One of the doctors suspected I could have schizophrenia but would not diagnose me as I did not meet some other symptoms.
During this time, I was covered under full medical insurance through his job, so all these medical expenses did not come out of his pocket. It was, however, taking a mental toll on me, and I was unable to keep the few jobs that I had.
Towards the end, I was mostly unemployed as my anxiety and worries skyrocketed at my condition, thinking I was schizophrenic.
Of course during this time, whenever we had an argument about our relationship he would throw this word around then when the fights get really bad, he would say to me, “If you want to leave, leave – but who else would want to marry a schitzo freak” and that would shut me up.
Getting out
During this time, I had almost no friends that were not friends with him. After university, I slowly lost contact with my batch, and my friends were all people I met through him.
I had started going for therapy to deal with my childhood traumas, and would meet with my therapist to talk about it. We never really talked about my relationship with Alex.
One day, through a complete coincidence, I think Alex forgot to sign out of his iMessage on the iPad.
When I clicked on it, I found a message he sent to a friend a couple of days back “LOL (my name) really thinks she’s crazy” and I immediately clicked on that chat.
What I found broke me. It was clear proof he had been messing with me and he was even sharing about it with his friend.
I took as many screenshots as I could, and emailed it to myself. I knew if I brought this up with him, he would find a way to gaslight me out of it.
The next day, I had an appointment with my therapist and I brought the iPad to her, as I wanted someone else to confirm what I had seen.
She was shocked and appalled. She cancelled her next appointment and we spent the next couple of hours talking and finding as much evidence as we could going back a couple of years.
When she asked me if I was ready to leave him, the answer was an immediate “yes”. After that everything was such a whirlwind. Within 24 hours, life as I knew it came crashing down.
My therapist truly saved my life that day. She helped me figure out what to do, how to stay away from him – she even offered me shelter while I moved out and found a place.
At the end, I moved in with my sister and her family while I figured out my next steps.
Alex was adamant that I was being unreasonable and that it was also a joke and I was too serious.
I knew it was something I could never forgive him because I was truly thinking I was going crazy. It’s been a few years now, and I’m still in therapy.
I’ve divorced him, managed to get a job that I love, teaching children and I am slowly building my life back up. I’m glad to put this chapter behind me. It was a nightmare and I’m glad I woke up.
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