My Abusive Ex Threatened Every Man Who Looked At Me. Until I Started Dating MMA Fighter

I just stood there in our kitchen and cried because I’d forgotten that fights could be that simple. Cameron held me while I explained about how Derek used to turn every small disagreement into a war.

I told him how he’d give me the silent treatment for days, refuse to tell me what I’d done wrong, and make me beg for forgiveness for things I didn’t even understand.

“I’m never going to do that to you,”

Cameron said.

“We’re going to fight sometimes, that’s normal. But we’re going to fight fair and we’re always going to come back to each other. Always.”

I’m learning to live again, to go out without fear, to smile at strangers, and to exist in the world as a normal person. But it wasn’t all smooth.

About five months into our relationship, I had a panic attack at a restaurant. We were at dinner with some of Cameron’s friends from the gym and one of them brought his new girlfriend.

Her name was Emily and she seemed nice enough, but she was the same age as me with long dark hair like mine. When she started telling a story about her ex-boyfriend, something about the way she described him made my chest tighten.

The restaurant was crowded and loud. There were too many people, too many men, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe.

I excused myself to the bathroom and locked myself in a stall. I tried to remember the breathing exercises my old therapist had taught me, but I couldn’t calm down.

My heart was racing and my hands were shaking. I was convinced Derek was out there watching and waiting.

Jessica found me 10 minutes later. She’d noticed I’d been gone too long and came looking.

She sat on the bathroom floor with me while I fell apart.

“It’s okay,”

she kept saying.

“You’re safe. Derek isn’t here. Cameron is right outside. You’re safe.”

Eventually, Cameron came looking for both of us. He took one look at me and understood immediately.

He didn’t ask questions. He just helped me up, told his friends we had to go, and drove me home.

In bed that night, I apologized.

“I ruined dinner,”

I said.

“You didn’t ruin anything,”

he said.

“You had a panic attack. That’s not your fault.”

“I thought I was getting better,”

I said.

“You are getting better. But healing isn’t linear. Some days are going to be hard, and that’s okay.”

He convinced me to start seeing a therapist again. Her name was Dr. Lisa Chen.

Yes, I noticed she had the same last name as Cameron. She specialized in trauma and recovery.

Dr. Chen was good, really good. She didn’t make me relive everything, but she helped me process it.

She helped me understand that what Derek did wasn’t my fault, that I didn’t deserve it, and that I didn’t cause it.

“You can’t control other people’s actions,”

she told me during one session.

“You can only control your response. And you responded by surviving. That takes strength.”

The therapy helped slowly and gradually. I started feeling more like myself, the self I was before Derek.

I was the girl who laughed easily and trusted people and didn’t flinch when someone raised their voice. Last week, I was at the grocery store by myself when I saw Derek in the frozen food aisle.

My whole body went rigid. He saw me too.

For a second, we just stared at each other. Then he grabbed his cart and walked in the opposite direction without saying a word.

I stood there for a minute processing, then I laughed. I actually laughed out loud in the middle of the grocery store.

Derek was afraid. He was not afraid of me, but of the person who chose to stand beside me.

That night, I told Cameron what happened.

“He ran away from you?”

Cameron said, grinning.

“Good.”

“I feel like I should feel bad about that,”

I said.

“Like you essentially scared him into leaving me alone through intimidation. Isn’t that just more of the same?”

Cameron thought about it.

“The difference is I’m not controlling you. I’m not telling you who you can talk to or where you can go. I’m not making your life smaller.”

“I made sure he couldn’t do that anymore. That’s not the same thing.”

He was right. A few days after that, something strange happened.

I got a message on Facebook from a woman named Amber. I didn’t recognize her name, but her profile showed she lived in Austin.

The message said:

“I hope this isn’t weird but I heard through a mutual friend that you used to date Derek Morrison. I’m reaching out because I just started dating him and some things are starting to feel off. I was wondering if we could talk.”

My blood went cold. Derek had moved on and he was already starting the same pattern with someone else.

I called Cameron immediately and read him the message.

“What do I do?”

I asked.

“You meet with her,”

he said without hesitation.

“You tell her everything. You give her the chance you never had.”

Confronting the Past to Claim the Future

So I did. Amber and I met at a coffee shop the next day.

She was 23, pretty, and looked nervous as hell. I didn’t sugarcoat anything.

I told her about the four years of control and manipulation. I told her about how Derek isolated me from my friends and how he tracked my location.

I told her about how he monitored my texts and the threats after I left. I told her about the two years of hell where I couldn’t even have a normal conversation with a man without Derek making them suffer for it.

Amber’s face got paler and paler as I talked.

“He told me you were crazy,”

she whispered.

“That you made up lies about him, that you cheated on him and then tried to ruin his life when he broke up with you.”

“That’s what he does,”

I said.

“He rewrites history and makes himself the victim.”

“He’s already started checking my phone,”

Amber said quietly.

“He says it’s because he has trust issues from his last relationship, from you. I thought I was helping him heal.”

“You’re not helping him. You’re enabling him, and it’s going to get worse.”

Amber left the coffee shop in tears. I didn’t know if she’d take my advice or not.

Some people need to learn the hard way. But two days later, she texted me.

“I broke up with him. He lost his mind, started screaming and punching walls, but I got out. Thank you.”

I showed Cameron the message.

“You saved her,”

he said.

“You broke the cycle.”

“We broke the cycle,”

I corrected. But the story with Amber didn’t end there.

Three days after she broke up with Derek, she called me in a panic.

“He’s outside my apartment,”

she said, her voice shaking.

“He’s been out there for an hour, just sitting in his car watching my window. I called the police but they said unless he does something, there’s nothing they can do.”

“Where do you live?”

I asked. She gave me the address.