Hi, I was wondering if you could tell me if I need to turn in me or my ex to authorities. First, my ex was not very kind to me when I was with him. I told him I had a severe form of Non-Verbal Learning Disability when I got diagnosed and that the reason I am somewhat okay socially is because my parents always over encouraged me to be social and one of my friends taught me how to talk to people “normally”(and I’d go to my parents with any social questions). He would tell me I seemed fine and I would tell him that part of it was my generalized anxiety making me stay more quiet and overthink and overthink until I figured out non-awkward or offensive things to say (esp. in a text). When I would bring this up, he would basically tell me to try harder because when we first dated (and I was on Abilify, an antipsychotic that actually can help autistics), I didn’t act so different. Also during the relationship, he told me that he laughed during gore scenes in movies and had obsessive urges to harm people, but drowned it out with stories he told himself and video games. Now that we are broken up and he treats the relationship as if it were my fault for it ending and makes me do all the work to get him to talk to me, we have parted ways completely, and too often I have urges to harm him, mainly to show him the pain he caused me and my cause other, and also because he is entering the military with confidential computer data access which scares me. I’m angry with myself for becoming like him, but he called me out of my mind once, and I had a psychiatrist that tried to convince me I was with practically no evidence. Granted I was histrionic in the relationship and easily anxious that he’d break up with me when we had a really intense text fight involving all caps. He also accused me more than once of cheating when I never once cheated. Never agreed to call me as my therapist suggested us do for my NVLD. Told me it was my fault I struggled so badly to pay attention to my teacher because she never stayed on one topic. He wasn’t nice.
The most important thing now is for you to take care of yourself. The military has extensive evaluations and training that your boyfriend will have to go through — if he needs help they will be the ones to figure that out and help — not you. The work for you is to find an individual therapist to work through your own issues of anger toward him — learn what drew you to him, made you stay with him, and make the proper adjustments for yourself in moving forward with relationships. The find help tab at the top of the page will help you find someone qualified to help near where you live.
Wishing you patience and peace,
Dr. Dan
