Can't Keep My Mouth Shut - 10 Early Red Flags of Abusive Partners - Part 2

Episode Date: November 25, 2024

I can only hope and pray that nobody else has experienced any of this, but I sadly know that's not the case. With all my love on this one, Nixalina. I'd like to thank the sponsor of today's episode - The Meat Club. For more awesome content to read including beauty, fashion or dating & love features, please do head over to my digital platform www.nixalina.com. Don't be shy, come say hai! Head over to my Instagram or Tiktok @nixalina to slide into my DMs

This podcast contains strong language and discussions about relationships, sex, and love. It may not be suitable for younger listeners. This is the Can't Keep My Mouth Shut podcast, and I am Nick Salina. Hi, Nick Salina here, and welcome back to part two of 10 Early Red Flags of Abusive Partners. how do we all feel about last week's episode that was intense right um and this was this is gonna be just as bad if not worse my apologies but we have to deal with a really shitty horrible nasty negative side of life someone needs to talk about it and that someone is me because I've lived through a lot of this sadly as well so without further ado we're going to

delve in please do go back and re-listen if you need a refresh and what I would like to point out once again as I did at the start of last week's episode that abuse is gradual physical and emotional abuse doesn't start right away we do not victim shame in this house no we do not and victims who get this why did you stay attitude of people they ignore because they're ignorant and abuse is insidious and they really do a number on your mental health and your physical health and every aspect of your life and I get it I've stayed way too long in many relationships where I should have left and it does take victims up to seven attempts to leave abusive partners so we do not shame anyone. Okay, without further ado, we jump right in. Point six, they have anger issues.

If someone's emotional profile leans towards anger, that usually entails they are more abusive over, say, someone's emotional profile that leads towards anxiety or sadness or insecurity. anger is a secondary emotion I hope most of you understand this and it usually covers an underlying emotion but a lot of these abusers they don't they're unable to delve into actually what's underneath the anger right so rather than sitting with themselves or going to therapy or working through traumas or understanding what's really going on they go towards anger obviously this then lends to abuse in the home someone who has a baseline of irritability and externalizes that and projects that onto another person especially with the anger profile

they're more likely to be abusive and if you combine anger with substance abuse you know even if it's just binge drinking or they drink daily or they drink too much this can definitely escalate both emotional and physical abuse my one of my exes had um definitely a temper an anger problem which only came out once we started living together that's another thing we should really highlight? These abusers don't walk into your life and they're like, hey, I'm abusive. Yo, first day, I'll fuck you up. No, they're very different. At the beginning, once my partner moved in, I really saw that anger come out. And I would be stonewalled, which is basically when they go silent on you for hours, they just shut down. I would be spoken down to. I could tell

just in his eyes like when he was angry and silent and broody and or I'd get reactive if say we've been drinking he's more overtly angry you know like before he's chucked his watch across the room he's ripped something up that meant something to me angry an angry man and whilst I'd struggle with this one because I am tempestuous. I'm not this shy, introverted, submissive woman. I am submissive in the bedroom, but we all know this already. But as a character profile, I'm dominating. I'm strong. I'm assertive. I'm opinionated. So when someone does have that level of temper or emotion. I do try and reason it with them. And I do try and sit with it. And I do try and evaluate like, okay, this is why this happened. And I can always try and see

their side of you. And I probably do it to the detriment of myself. Because anger, problems and tempers that are seemingly part of their character profile is a sign of an abusive partner point seven isolation they try to isolate you from your friends and family they try and perhaps physically move you somewhere else so somewhere more remote where you have no support system around you isolation is an interesting one because they will not do it in a way once again where they show up and go do you know what fuck all your friends fuck all your family that's not how it works I have one example with my ex he met one of my girlfriends twice twice on a night out and like lovely girl like I'm just talking on the night out she did not say anything wrong

she did not do anything wrong she's very sociable very chatty and he turns around to me and says yeah you know I'm really good judge of character um yeah I think you need to keep that girl at arm's length and I'll remember being like what why why and he's like just trust me on this like she's no good she's not trustworthy she's not good for you you need to keep her at arm's length ironically she's one of the most authentic genuine kind open loving girlfriends I've had and I've encountered some shady, shitty, fake-as-fuck women on this island and this girl is the opposite and yet she's the one he picked out to try and tell me to keep her at arm's length

and he'd done it very nicely, he'd done it very softly and he'd done it in a way of, you know I'm a better judge of character than you are and he knows I feel like I'm not a good judge of character because I always end up with narcissists I always end up with fake friends I always end up with I say always I'm exaggerating now but he knew that my internal dialogue is like I don't know my own judgment with people because you know like the fiance there I am thinking we're happy I'm gonna marry him I was so happy and he's sleeping with someone else do you know what I mean so this ex kind of used my internal dialogue to say I'm the best judge of character I know what's

right for you more than you know what's right for you you can't see it because you think everyone is lovely but she's not keep her arm's length and it's super shit because thank god I didn't listen to him but I could see it looking back like I could have lost a friendship if I'd remained in that relationship if I'd carried on I wouldn't have had a choice because every time I would have tried to go out with her he would have been like I told you not to go out with this girl that's where it was going to and if what they usually do is they isolate you from friends or family that can see right through them friends or family that can step back and be like something's wrong here. Friends and family that will say to you, Nix, that you're not happy. There's an issue.

Those types of people in your life, your support system, they're the ones that they'll try and find a reason to isolate you from. Or like I said earlier, they just move you. Oh, bae, we should move to this part or we should move to Vietnam or we should move to, I don't know, anywhere. or it could be within the country that you live in, or it could be across the globe. Anywhere where there you've got fucking no one except them to lean on, that's their ultimate isolation goal. Point eight, punishment. Punishment. This comes in various forms. I've spoke about it earlier. So one is a silent treatment I stonewall in I would be punished if I spoke out I'd be punished if I raised my voice because he did something I didn't like I'd be punished if I if I did anything out

wrong and I mean punished as in he would be silent in my home for say up to five hours a time and it It was a horrible, awful atmosphere where, you know, I'd be like cooking food or doing some work on my computer and he's just there brooding and angry and I'd talk to him and I'd get ignored. Or if I went out and I text him because he's stonewalling me, he'd ignore every message for three or four hours and then I come home and he still won't talk to me. It was fucking awful. And I couldn't get him to stop. I couldn't get him to open up. and I'd come home and I'd be like, what the fuck is your problem? What have I done so wrong that you won't fucking speak to me for six hours? What? Because I asked you to put your laundry away.

You think this is, that can't be true. Word for word, that would be something that would happen and it happened. I dared to ask him to put his laundry away that had been sitting out a bag of clothes he just bought for a month it'd been sitting out for a month and I dared to say baby can you please put that bag of clothes away now oh chucked that bag on the floor in fact he chucked it into the living room from the bedroom screams at me I'll do it things when I want to fucking do them and then doesn't talk to me for six hours because I left the house went off to a health screen in and I didn't say goodbye. You see how it was my fault? So he gets angry because he's been dared to ask to do a lighthouse chore, just put his own clothes away, nothing huge.

Gets annoyed, gets intimidating, throws the bag into the living room, the bag of clothes, screams at me and then expects me to say bye baby when I leave the house and I didn't because of that behavior I silently left the house and then I get ignored five or six hours later like what the fuck that's stonewalling for you and what happens with stonewalling is basically you become so focused on getting them to talk to you or be nice again you forget what's happened to begin with you forget the reason this is even happening it weren't even about the laundry at the end of it I didn't I come back home I was like you've like look at what you've done and he's like well you left without saying goodbye rah rah rah and this

is one incident I got stonewalled all the time and I'd basically just give up in the end and just wait for him to come over and cuddle me and he'd come over and he'd put his arms around me peck me on the head because I never got decent kisses anymore peg me on the head and that meant okay you're done with your punishment now we can be nice again fucking mental even I'm annoyed can you listen to my voice I'm now annoyed going back knowing I lived through that okay more punishment is then playing the victim when you confront them about how they treated you that I've just done that's a perfect example. He's a victim because I left the house without saying goodbye, not what he just did to me earlier. They also blame shift. They get you to apologize for

their mistakes. And it's just basically like they're trying to get you to conform to what they want. If they fuck up, somehow you're to blame. They're the victim. Punishment can also be they go off and do exactly what you they know you wouldn't like so like the night one of my exes and I separated he got very angry and standard and left me in a hotel and he went off to a KTV and filmed it on his social media so I could see it and that was one of the places I was really very much not happy with him going punishing me he punished me because he got angry at the hotel. So he thought, fuck her. And I will tell you now, I did nothing wrong. I left him to have a nap because he wanted a nap. And I didn't want to have a nap. I'd had

some champagne. I wanted to go out. We had free flow in an hour. I wanted to go and live a little, take some videos, be present. I dared to leave the hotel room alone. I dared to be out of his sight. I dared to leave him. He was topless in the bed. Leave him to have a nap. That's what I did wrong. That's why he broke up with me. And he was so angry that I left the hotel room. And he was so angry that he said he would get changed with me. And I was like, but you're topless asleep on the bed. So I thought I'd just let you have a nap. He was so angry I left hotel room he leaves me and he goes off to a ktv to punish me that's why he filmed it to punish me it's fucking mental isn't it so fucked up

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this comes in all forms um but basically by one of my examples yeah read through my journals i'm convinced he read my recent journal even though he'd swear oh i only read all your old ones just because I wanted to get to know you and it kind of backfired on him because I wrote a lot about my fiance and he read about it and then he got insecure and would ask me things like do you miss your ex-fiance's big dick yeah I did yeah fucking actually good question yeah I did who the fuck asks that but it spiraled because he he could see in my journals how in love I was with my ex-fiance I was like of course I was in love with him I was gonna fucking marry him but this was two years ago bro come on so they take away your privacy things like your phone

yeah anything any documents um and physical privacy um like I said I couldn't use the bathroom with the door closed especially not locked and I mean I couldn't use the bathroom there was one time I was on the toilet he puts his head through and I ended up having to slam the door into his head and I was I felt so guilty about it but I was in such an uncomfortable anxious stage and I was like get out get out get out and I'm I'm just on the toilet right come on I'm just sitting on the toilet and I couldn't even do that alone but you fucking bet he locked the door whenever he went to the loo. What was that? What point? Was double standards? Oh yeah, point three in last week's episode. Double standards. There you go. He locked the door

every time he needed the loo. I was not allowed. No. And he'd go, you know what? If you want to prove you love me, you will use the bathroom in front of me. Jesus Christ. I can't. I just can't regardless anymore. Anyway, they take away your privacy. You basically don't exist as a person without them. You're not a singular human anymore. You are part of them. An extension, if you will, but not in a good way. And finally, point 10 is gaslighting. This is so incredibly be bad for your mental state and they gaslight often I mean I'm trying to think if you go well what do they gaslight straight away no it's the same as everything else they'll be perfect and loving and amazing then the gaslighting creeps in the gaslighting is basically they rewrite reality

so that you can't trust your own experiences anymore so for instance we take my example with my ex where we spoke about my sagging face I actually brought it up later on and I was like you know how cool it is that I bent down to kiss you and what you do is you hold my face in your hands and you say your face is sagging what are we going to do about it and then you pull my face up by my temples he's like that never happened that way I'm like what and and we're sober daytime I remember it he's like no you were talking about fillers and I've just pulled pulled your face and said oh well where where are you having the fillers there and what are you doing bollocks that didn't happen and I know it didn't because I have evidence it didn't happen that way because I went

off and booked my fillers appointment because of that fucking comment from him so the timeline I've already worked out the timeline it's impossible for that to have been the way he said it happened because I had never fucking booked face fillers I hadn't done face fillers before that so he reckons I bent down for a kiss and he was interested to know how fillers works and that's why he pulled my face up because he's like yeah tell me when you're where you're getting them. Bollocks. I bent down and he said, your face is sagging. What are we going to do about it? He'd also say other stuff, to be fair, like I'd seen moles. I got two moles on my armpit. I mean, I've got moles everywhere. I'm half ginger, people. I'm freckly and I'm

moley and I'm British and I don't give a fuck. And he'd go, what are those? I'd go, baby, they're moles. Tiny, tiny little moles. And he'd go, yeah, remove them. What? I know. why are you speaking to me like that about my body why would i i don't give a fuck about the moles why would i remove them just stuff like this so i know for damn sure the way i remembered that convo about my face was accurate and he was gaslighting me i guarantee if i said you remember that time you were having to go at me about two moles a month it went no i didn't you pointed them out said you didn't like him and i just said we'll remove them then that's how he would tell it gaslighting is so scary and it makes you so angry because you're like you start to then question

was i truthful is that never and this is why fucking journal because there's so much shit in my journal that i read back and really understood how much of the gaslighting i'd been living with because i'd be writing stuff at the time and months later he's changing the narrative but i've already secretly wrote it in my journal because it's something i'm experiencing in. I'm like, this happened and that happened. So now I can go back and really factually look at it and be like, you fucking lying piece of shit. Gaslighting is one of the most psychologically damaging manipulation technique that abusers will use. And if you live with it for a long time, it grinds you down to nothing. And it makes you a shadow of yourself. You can't trust your own

reality. Imagine that. Not even been able to trust your own memory or reality unless they say so. my bonus point number 11 bonus sounds like it's fun it's the absolute opposite is strangulation so I was not aware of this until this year um and you should probably if you haven't listened to my first episode yet which I hope you have you should probably go back and listen to that because point five I talk about when um one of my exes put his hands around my throat and this was quite early on in the relationship as well and it was more than once um I think in total he's put his one around the back of my neck back of my throat pushing me once on the front of my throat anger pushing me and then a third time where I thought it was going to be like sexy fun but it wasn't

in hindsight he just put his hand around my throat but what that I don't really count that but maybe i should have anyway strangulation i need to make this very very fucking clear if a woman's partner has ever strangled her even once her risk of being murdered by that same partner shoots up to 750 percent more likely compared to a woman who has never been strangled let's just let that sink in so whilst that we've gone through abuse in these two episodes there's many different abuses we know it's like physical mental psychological and there's also financial abuse as well and it's all awful but I didn't realize that strangulation say above hitting punching, kicking, shoving. Strangulation is the single greatest predictor of homicide

in abusive relationships. A partner who strangles you even just once is more likely to kill you. And that's a 750% statistical increase. It also usually highlights that it would be within the next year of the first time they put their their hands around your throat which is terrifying and obviously if the victim sustains multiple strangulations and there's multiple different aspects where the hand is around the throat the risk of course rises so a couple more statistics for this strangulation 45 percent of attempted homicides in domestic violent situations against women involved non-fatal strangulation. 70% of women who have been strangled did believe they were going to die and 38% reported losing consciousness. Wow. And this is stats, right?

So Akasi Gwin, I think I said her name correctly, the co-founder of the Training Institute for strangulation prevention, says that research has now made it clear that when a man puts his hands around a woman's neck, he has just raised his hand and said, I'm a killer. How fucking terrifying is that? The personality profile of a strangler is one of rage and homicidal violence. And I tell you why it's frightening, because I've lived it more than once. More than once. I couldn't tell you the amount of times my boyfriend when I was 16 put his hands around my neck. Couldn't tell you. And I was with him for two years. I do have a whole episode on that of my domestic abusive violent relationship with him. But I had no

idea about this. And even now I've reached 37 and I've still allowed someone else to put his hands around my neck. And you're going to be like, oh my God, why didn't you fucking leave the next morning? Well, because I got blamed for it. Because I flipped the phone out of his hand. So I started the violence, didn't I? It was my fault. I flipped the phone away so that he'd stop looking at his phone, stop scrolling on Insta and Facebook and actually talk to me because I was being stonewalled for the 20th billionth time during an argument that he started with me because I disappeared for two hours at work.

Dare I not let him know exactly where I am 24-7? I got his hands around my neck and I was made to believe it was my fault. And it's sad. I look back, I've got texts. Like, I have proof because the next day I'm texting him about it. I am texting him about it.

so there you go should a guy ever ever lay a hand around your neck in a non-consensual non-sexual way because we know i'm love my domination in bed you know asphyxiation is my thing in bed i do love it if it if it is not that and it's in rage and it's not part of a bedroom thing and it's not consensual and they just go for your throat, they will at some point probably want to kill you. Please, please never make my mistakes and don't fucking leave the next day. I wish I'd left. I shouldn't be texting him explaining how it fucking hurts what he did to me. I shouldn't be texting him saying you are stronger than me. You can't put your hand around my throat like that. You can't push me by my neck like that. I

shouldn't have been doing it. And it terrifies me that I did. So please heed my words. And I cannot believe this statistic with strangulation. I only just very recently found this out and it's scary. But it's true. This isn't like a stat made up on the internet on some fucking Reddit forum. it is like known it's a fact and especially with homicide um homicide within abusive relationships within the home strangulation is your number one not hitting not punching not kicking not throwing not throwing objects not shoving into a wall strangulation is the one that they will at some point kill you. Wow, that is a horrible, horrible way to have to leave an episode. But it is also a horrible two episodes, isn't it? And I'm fine. I finally feel like I got it out of my system. And

it's been something that I've had to really process about talking about for a while. Because it's just difficult you know for me to regale some of the shit I've been on the receiving end of but I have to I feel like I have to I feel like it's my responsibility to do so and it can't all be fluffy fun sex stuff can it because that ain't life oh what sex position shall we do this week luckily I've never done an episode like that but you know what I mean it can't all be airs and races or, you know, date in Tinder profile, whatever. It has to be real. And this is real. And this is real life. And I'm a best case scenario of women that do end up abused and do end up in abusive relationships and do end up loving someone who is very bad for them, but believes it's their

fault because of how the dynamics of the relationship has grown. And it's, you know, if I can fall prey to it, I know a lot of else of other people can. So hopefully this has helped. So if any of this hits home, firstly, my apologies. Secondly, my DMs are always open. I say this every week, and I'm glad that you guys do take me up on this, but you can slide into my DMs. I say Instagram and TikTok, but it's probably you get a faster response on Instagram. It's at nixalina, N-I-X-A-L-I-N-A.

And if you need me, I'm here for you. And with that, we will end this two-part series. And I look forward to do something way more fun and uplifting next week. a new episode every Monday evening. Please do give me a five-star review. It helps other people also find my podcast. For more content and features to read, you can check out my website, nixalina.com. That's nixalina.com. I'm also on social media. Simply search at Nixalina, N-I-X-A-L-I-M-A to find me. Don't be shy. Come say hi. Thank you.