I would like to preface this article by saying that this is a deviation from my usual subjects of pop-culture and technology. This article is to bring to light something that happens to many people around the world. The worst part is most people are too ashamed or scared to speak up about it.

When most people think of abuse, their mind directly moves to domestic abuse, or the act of physically hurting your partner in a relationship.

The abuse that I am talking about in this article does focus on abuse in relationships. However, I am also here to say that abuse does not only affect women and can also take the form of emotional abuse. Abuse does not only happen in relationships: your family can be doing this to you and you may not even know it.

The experiences that I draw on are personal, and that is why I decided to write on this topic.

I was emotionally abused and insulted for almost the whole time that I was in that relationship. Every time an argument came up, I would be cussed at and made to feel emotionally broken. I allowed this person to dominate me and it caused me to accept the things she said as reality and convince myself that it was normal to be treated this way in a relationship.

I would be compared to other people, insulted and emotionally broken every time we had a fight. This was all done out of spite, and the worst part is that, despite knowing that it was out of spite, I continued to accept the things that were being done to me because I convinced myself the good outweighed the bad.

I kept telling myself that this is what I deserved. Because I loved her, it was better for her to do it to me than to anyone else in her future. No matter what happened, I stopped caring about how I felt.

By the middle of the relationship, I had started gaining weight, caring less and less about myself and my health. When all my friends and relatives asked why I had gained weight, I convinced myself that it was exam stress and I would find the time to lose all this weight. I did not realize that the abuse I was going through and the things she said about my weight made it even worse.

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My whole life stopped revolving around loving myself and instead revolved around her. I would say nothing because I had convinced myself that unconditional love meant that she could do anything to me and I would stay no matter what. I began to push myself out of the equation of the relationship and allowed my life to revolve around her.

No matter what I did, I felt her grip on my throat. I didn’t feel like a man anymore. I felt like half of what I was (although I had gained another half of myself in weight) and yet I continued to believe that everything was okay. Even though there were times when I would wake up in the middle of the night because my mind would wander, and the moment I started thinking about how she compared me to others I would break down. I would cry, run my hands through my hair and have this sensation of heat that just flowed up and down my body, and somehow I would wake up the next morning and convince myself that everything was okay, but somewhere deep inside I knew I was being broken piece by piece until there was nothing left.

This is possibly the worst effect of being in an abusive relationship. No matter how much time passes, or how many friends try to console you, and even when you come to the realization that you are in an abusive relationship, you are so beaten down and have lost so much of yourself that you have become dependent on them and still love them. No matter what they say, or do, it will always come into my head that it is an obligation that I have to that person to be okay with this. No matter how much I want to say "I hate you for what you did to me”, even now I can never do that.

Until now, this person still has her clutches on me.

This article is not merely a story of my problems, it is a message to all of the people who are in a relationship like this: I beg you to please get out. No matter how much your mind tries to fight you on it, no matter how much it seems to hurt and it doesn’t make sense to leave them, please do it. At that moment you are no longer yourself and it will have to come to the point that you begin to love yourself again and move on from this.

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No matter how much it embarrasses you, or hurts you, or if you’re born in a strict Asian household that tells you to deal with your own pain and keep it in, please, please tell someone about it. I hope that this is a wake-up call to many and a realization for others.

And if everything else fails you then, please, my Twitter is below, send me a message and I will try and help in any way I can.

This article is to remind you that you are not alone. There is someone out there who is going through the same things as you are, please know that.

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Kenneth is a 17-year-old high school student who loves comic books, Dota 2, movies, political science and history. He is currently living in Jakarta and working toward his IB diploma. You can reach him at @kenneth2098 on Twitter.

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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.