I don't really know how to ask for help, even when I know that I should. I have needed to ask for help for the past 4 years of my life, but I didn't because I didn't want to lose sight of myself. As it turns out, denying myself the right to ask for help h hardly know who I am anymore. Maybe that's what finally brought me here, with no other option but to close my eyes as hard as I can and hope that anyone can hear me.

Four years ago, I met someone who told me plain and simple that he had no intention of letting me go. We met as a result of a chance encounter one evening, and up until very recently, have spent only a handful of days apart. I was someone who woke up every day excited at the possibilities that were ahead of me; a dream job in New York, a recent reconciliation with my Mother, the opportunity to finally travel and see more than Ohio just to name a few. In all my excitement I neglected to take him seriously, it had already been decided that I was never going anywhere.

The day that changed my life in a way that still feels irreversible, that version of me was beaten, manipulated, gaslit, and broken down so severely that it fractured my reality. It was the first time I experienced depersonalization and dissociation; people that I've known for years tell me I was almost unrecognizable.

I somehow ended up back at "home", inside the house we shared, and I didn't leave it for more than 2 years. It became all I knew. I was, and very much still am convinced that he is all I have. That I need him to survive, that no one will ever put up with how pathetic and dependent I am. It's quite literally extinguishing any spark of..really anything left inside of me.

There's something that's making me fight against what I desperately don't want my future to be. Something has been pushing back lately, I just don't know how much pushing I'm capable of. I took a huge risk and applied to an IT program, and I enrolled in online school studying the humanities; truthfully as a way to start the process of trying to leave. After speaking with a career coach during yesterdays class, I know that there's something that's making possibility of getting some semblance of my life back and I don't think I can wait, I'll lose my nerve and everything else that I'm now working so hard toward.

I'm here writing this now because I don't have anyone to turn to during a time when I honestly have no idea what will happen next. I have a dog that just turned 3, who has been the one bright spot in my life since I secretly got her when she was 8 weeks old. Realizing that I might have to do this without her is something that's making feels like a really sick joke. She's been by my side for everything, and it's heartbreaking to think of her waiting for me to come back, and in case it was my last chance, I already asked her to please be good and that I would miss her and that I would never forget her. If anyone reading this has ever had a dog, you might understand that was the hardest part of all of this.

I want to reclaim my life, I want to finish school, I want to be able to start over with my dog. My schoolwork is intensive, but accelerated. I'll be certified and equipped to land a decent job by October. It's nearly impossible to have a full time job while attending, the admissions director even warned me when I interviewed. I'm already so close to a new life, I just have to be able to get there. And that brings us to right now. And my asking for help. Any kind of help. I can even set up some kind of repayment. I just don't want to miss the chance to live a life again. Thank you so much. If it's within your abilities to help, I can't ever say thank you enough.

i can't publish photos, writing this is already a huge risk. But I will happily send pictures of the happiest man with his equally happy dog as a thank you!