Hi everyone, My name is Jayde Anderson. I am currently making a documentary about how breakups affect us both emotionally and physically and what people go through while coping through a love loss. While researching for the film and going over current footage of interviews, I realized that I’m asking all theses strangers to pour their hearts out to me about their relationships and their breakups but I’m not speaking about my own. For quite some time I didn’t think my story was worth telling. I always thought people have been through way worse than me or that what happened to me doesn’t compare to what some people have encountered. I was worried people would judge me or look down on me. I am wrong though, every story matters.
I have two main love stories that impacted my life and before getting into the abusive one, I must explain the emotionally unhealthy one first. It began with my first true love of course. I was young, only nineteen, him - 25. We were together for 4 years and I was completely infatuated. Nobody could ever compare to him in my mind, I was smitten, content. We got along so well in the beginning, our humor was a perfect match; we both were children at heart and we loved doing nerdy things together. He co-signed on my first car because I didn’t have credit. I let his good qualities blind me from the serious red flags, though. In my mind, if he helped me get a car and asked me to move in then he must love me right? There was only one major problem… he never wanted to touch me. We never had sex, at least not for the last 3 years of our relationship. Even when I moved in, he didn’t want any of my stuff decorated around his house. I wasn’t allowed to have my things hung up on his walls or anything of mine on display in the living room or kitchen. Prior to asking me to move in, he had asked one of his friends to move in for financial reasons. This friend that moved in was a girl. The day he informed me of his new roommate, I sat there crying at a restaurant in public pleading him to ask one of his guy friends to move in instead of this girl but he didn’t care. He let me sit there and cry, he always just let me cry.
No matter the situation or fight, I never felt an ounce of comfort or affirmation from him when I was upset. Often, I’d find him looking at other girl’s profiles on social media, even messaging other girls too. He would make sure to comment how pretty many of my friends looked when they would post new photos but would never comment on mine. I was never allowed to look at his phone either, it was off-limits to me. He liked his “privacy.” I felt the need to ask all of my girlfriends and female co-workers about their sex lives, specifically how much their boyfriends and husbands liked having sex with them. I was trying to gauge what was “normal”… I was still trying to justify my own sex life. I began to feel disgusting, gross, ugly, worthless and unwanted. I began to think I was too fat and if I was skinnier he’d want me or if I changed my hair he might think I look pretty. Even though I loved wearing shorts, he told me I looked worse in shorts compared to pants and that I should stick to pants. He also said that I looked bad in flip flops and better in tennis shoes. I was always cautious of what I would wear when we would go do things in public, hoping I’d be cute enough for him to want me or touch me.
After countless attempts at trying everything, even wearing lingerie for him and having him laugh in my face about it (yes he laughed at me when I tried to surprise him in lingerie one day), it was time to have a serious talk. In the middle of our talk he said he was done with the discussion and rolled over, away from me in the bed, and went to sleep. I was so angry I went downstairs, grabbed a large cup of ice cold water, brought it back upstairs and poured it all over him in the bed. I said to him that our discussion wasn’t done and nothing was fixed. He strung up out of bed so fast, I’ve never seen him so angry in my life. I was forced to sleep on the couch downstairs the rest of the night. I woke up the next day and went to work like normal but when I came home my whole world was shattered. I pulled up to all of my stuff outside in the driveway. I moved back in with my parents and had to temporarily share a room with my little sister. When we got to their house that night I went into her room and laid on the floor. She asked me if I wanted to come up into bed with her, but I couldn’t move. I was frozen, laying in a ball on the floor, and I slept there all night.
For the next 8 months to follow, I was heartbroken. I had experienced my first love loss. I lost 18 pounds, I couldn’t go out with friends without crying in a bathroom stall and I failed two of my college classes. I truly believed that I was in the wrong throughout our entire relationship and that I’m the one who lost something special. I’ve never felt so low in my entire life. During the last month of my heartbreak, I started a new job and met someone there. Oh so bitter sweet. You see, this person brought me out of rock bottom and out of my heartache that I never thought possible, but then showed me a whole other array of toxicity - alcoholism and domestic violence.
The beginning of this new found relationship was like fireworks on 4th of July. I was bursting at the seams excited. He wanted to touch me, constantly. The touching and making out and sex was 24/7 and he wanted me with him all the time. I finally felt wanted and desired. I was allowed in his phone. It was all so new to me, and I couldn’t get enough of it. We moved into an apartment together and I knew we were moving fast but I didn’t care. I had never had anyone treat me this way. Everything he was doing was so nice… until it wasn’t. His true colors began to show after a while. If I came home late or didn’t answer a call or text fast enough, I’d get questioned as to where I was and what took me so long. His protectiveness turned into possessiveness and the desire feeling turned to a controlling feeling. I started getting uncomfortable accepting phone calls from my friends for fear it was one of my guy friends and he’d fly off the handle. I ended up losing friends while with him and I felt like I wasn’t able to be myself in our own home. He became short tempered and irritable after work if I tried talking or laughing with him. If we disagreed on what to watch he would take the remote from me and say that he pays for most of the bills so its his choice. I took notice that everything was revolved around alcohol. He drank everyday after work whether it was beer or hard liquor. Co-workers said they saw him even drinking during lunches too and would see him at a gas station grabbing a large beer. Every event we went to he needed to make sure and to bring alcohol with. I was naive toward what was considered a normal amount of alcohol and what wasn’t. His whole family loved drinking so I began to think I was the abnormal one in the scenario. The first incident happened when we were out with his family one night while they were heavily drinking. Him and I walked outside before anyone else and to the side of the restaurant where he pulled out his pocket knife, pinned me against the wall and put the knife up to my throat. I was completely frozen. I could feel the blade against my skin. When he let go I couldn’t speak. I wasn’t sad, or mad but confused. I didn’t understand why he did it and I still don’t to this day. I chalked it up to him just “joking” and playing around. We walked back with his family to the house in complete silence. I buried that memory deep in my mind, never told a soul and pretended it never happened.
Fast forward a year into our relationship. We were sitting at home on the couch and he had a glass of hard liquor in his hand. He had already had a few prior to that and was drunk. When he started in on his usual name calling and belittling me I pulled out my phone to record him. I figured this way there would be no argument and he wouldn’t be able to yell at me the next day about how I was a crazy bitch and making things up. He could just see for himself how he acts. He got up off the couch to get more to drink and that’s when he noticed I had my phone out and was recording, and he lost it. He jumped across the couch and reached over me to take my phone. I got up off the couch and tried grabbing my phone back, standing in front of him, reaching behind his back for it. He put my phone in his back pocket and shoved me to the ground. I thought nothing of it at the time and I got back up off the ground and tried getting my phone back again. He grabbed my shoulders and shoved me down harder the second time. I fell into the ground with my back hitting the corner of the arm rest of the couch. I sat there for a second before I started tearing up. I realized how terrified I was of him. I got up again and said that he needed to give me my phone back immediately or that I would contact the police. He proceeded to say that I was acting like a psycho path and being crazy and blowing everything out of proportion. I looked down at his bourbon glass that he loved so much, grabbed it and threw it on the ground. It shattered across the kitchen floor and up toward the front door. He started screaming at me violently and coming toward me. I ran for the front door and opened it, running to our neighbors apartment across the way. I was banging on their door for help, hoping they’d open up and let me in. I couldn’t think of anything but getting away from him. Then, he grabbed the back of my head by grabbing a chunk of my hair and yanked my head down, pulling me to the ground. He proceeded to drag me by my hair across the floor through the shattered glass, where my legs got cut up. I was screaming bloody murder the whole time fighting to get away. When he slammed our front door shut he pinned me down to the ground and held his hands over my mouth, screaming at me to be quiet. Realizing I couldn’t move I finally went limp. It seemed like light-years until he got up off of me. I got up and walked into our room not knowing where to go or what to do or if I was safe. He walked in the room and looked down at my leg where it was dripping blood from the shattered glass.
Over the next year I downplayed everything. I reassured myself that other people have encountered a lot worse situations and what he did wasn’t that bad. It also didn’t help that he justified it by saying he never hurt me because he didn’t directly hit me. I questioned myself a lot and began to believe that I was being crazy and dramatic. I felt confused and stuck. I knew I had to leave but I didn’t want to move back home with my parents for fear they’d find out and I couldn’t afford my own place. I knew deep down that this wasn’t right and felt that the whole thing was being dismissed. I let that anger build inside of me and one night I started thinking about everything he’s done to me. It’s as if it finally hit me that I was never wrong and what he did was not okay. I got so angry thinking about it that I slapped him across the face. He then grabbed me by my throat, wrapped his hands around it and started to choke me. I remember feeling the same terror that I had felt previously. He choked me until I couldn’t breathe and almost lost complete consciousness before he let go. I could no longer keep this a secret and knew it was time to tell someone after 2 years. I told my best friend one night while at her house with her, where I felt safe, and opened up about everything.
So why am I telling you my story and making this documentary? I’ve interviewed a mom who attempted suicide after finding out her husband was cheating on her and said he was divorcing her. Someone close to me lost a friend because he shot himself over a breakup. Someone I love more than anything went through 10 years of emotional and physical abuse. There are too many stories like this for me to keep quiet any longer. I want everyone to know that there is hope. There is a light at the end of the tunnel for every heartache you experience. Anyone can overcome a situation and come out on top. No one is alone. Love loss, heartache, breakups - it's all universal and everyone can relate to the subject. Everyone has or will go through a breakup in their life time, and I want the people who either are currently experiencing it, or might go through it in the future know, that you will come out on the other end okay. I promise.
Want to be apart of this documentary or tell your story? Feel free to contact Vindication Films.
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