Recently left an abusive relationship

I’m a man in my early 30s. I met a woman online at the tail end of 2023 and we hit it off right away. All went well initially. She had said she had some anxiety from past relationships but it didn’t seem to be anything unmanageable. That was until we were officially together in early February. The anxiety she had seemed to get exponentially worse and she would question me unendingly for hours. Sometimes it could last 12 straight hours. This escalated in I think late February or early March to her hitting me. Slaps initially, and she broke my glasses. Then it moved to scratching and slashing and clawing and pinching. Then eventually to punching, biting and also I was stabbed with a pen a number of times.

This happened regularly. Initially only in private but as time wore on, she’d do it in public in a supermarket parking lot or similar. This all continued even though after every episode she’d say it would never happen again. In mid August, she tried to gouge my eyes out. When that didn’t work because I managed to pry her off me, she knocked me down and tried to strangle me. Somehow I stayed anyway. The next week though, one evening, she bit me so hard she took a chunk out of my left hand and clawed a deep wound into my right wrist. The. She hit me 2 (or 3) times in the head with her iPhone. I immediately I think went into shock but wasn’t sure why until I realized my head was bleeding quite profusely and I started to feel strange. She was initially shocked but that waned quite quickly and she went right back to anxious questioning and it took a further 3 hours before she decided it was okay for me to change my ruined shirt and wash the blood out of my hair and face. She swore (again) before we went to bed that this would never happen again. The next morning, I woke her up for work. She woke up irritated and within 5 minutes, punched me full force in the stomach twice and slapped me so hard, my glasses flew off. She then went for her work shoe (she’s a nurse at a hospital) and rubbed the dirty sole of the shoe into my wound. After that, I was dropping her to work and while on the highway, she twice suddenly took hold of the steering wheel and jerked out around almost causing crashes both times. After I dropped her off, I was heading back home and started to feel nauseous and dizzy. I threw up on the side of the highway and called a crisis line because I didn’t know what else to do. They said 1. Go to a hospital and 2. Leave because it’s not safe. So I went to the ER. The whole time she blew up my phone saying I didn’t care about her and I wasn’t keeping her constantly updated. I ended up needing a CT. Thankfully that was clear but I have a concussion that could last months to a year. I also had to get treated for a scalp laceration and get a tetanus shot and treatment for the bite wounds. That apparently triggered the hospital to have social work speak to me who helped me make a plan and I left that evening. I was planning to propose to her on Sept 3 so I’d had her mother keep the ring. Ended up meeting with all of them as a pretext to get the ring back. She claims she’s going to therapy now etc.

Anyway, after I got the ring back, I told her I was done and all that was unacceptable. Blocked her and her family. She tried to contact me a few times despite that but I have not responded.

I have severe anxiety now as a result of all this. I constantly feel like maybe she will show up to my house. Whenever I see an unknown number I flinch and my heart rate goes through the roof. I no longer sleep through the night. Every two hours or so I wake up in a cold sweat with my heart racing. I never remember them, but I have nightmares all the time now. So many things in the world trigger my anxiety. I never had any of this before.

and somehow, despite the fact that I despise what she did and I hate her for it, I’ve found myself missing her a few times. Especially this past Sept 3 which is when I’d made a whole elaborate plan with her family to propose to her. It’s been very freeing and I’m glad to be out of that situation but it’s also been so hard on so many levels.

I never thought I’d be physically abused. Especially not by someone who supposedly loved me. But in looking back annd reading up, it seems she has many if not all the hallmarks of narcissism. She accused me of gaslighting and lying to her. I never did any of that. But it looks like she did it to me instead. That on top of essentially extorting money from me while abusing me. It’s amall so confusing and painful and I’m not even sure what to do.

I’m not even sure there was a point here. I think I just needed to write this out.