Internet Friendships Helped Me See My Abuse

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One fateful day in 2017, I didn’t know how to operate Snapchat very well and accidentally made a group with four of my contacts in it. I had never met these friends in person but we knew each other from a Facebook group.

Group chat accidentally formed, we started chatting every day and became extremely close. We’d share good news and bad, vent about life, send cute cat photos, the works. These women were my closest friends for a brief part of my life.

These friends and others, people I had never met in person before, were there for me in some of my darkest hours.

Uncovering abuse

I believed the problem was me. My insecurity. My neediness. My lack of trust in my husband.

Part of realizing that you’re being abused is learning what abuse is. So many people think that abuse must be physical, but financial, emotional, and sexual abuse are just as traumatizing. And I had no idea that I was living in an abusive home until friends started pointing out that my husband’s behavior was controlling.

Actually, that’s not true. Another group of online friends told me I was being abused two years prior. I made a plan to leave, but he convinced me to stay. I was so relieved to see his…