I met someone during one of the most vulnerable periods of my life. I believed I was helping a person who was struggling, someone who needed stability and compassion while trying to heal.
Looking back, I can see how easily vulnerability can be exploited.
At the time, this person was focused on recovering traumatic memories and trying to piece together their past. They had stopped attending therapy and began taking medications in ways they believed would help them access memories. Whether those memories were real or not, the result was a growing detachment from reality and accountability.
I thought I was supporting someone through a difficult healing process. What actually happened was that I slowly became the support system for someone else’s instability.
They began staying in my apartment for extended periods without contributing financially. Basic responsibilities became arguments. My medications went missing. The household responsibilities fell almost entirely on me. Even simple expectations—like cleaning up after the dog or helping maintain the home—became accusations that I was “caretaking too much” or trying to control them.
The first time things became physically violent happened during a winter storm.
We were stuck inside together because of the weather. My child was not home at the time. During an argument, something was thrown through my favorite mirror and I was slapped across the face.
At the time, I rationalized it. I told myself it was stress, the storm, or the pressure of everything they were going through.
Later, my young child opened the door early one morning and was physically disciplined despite me being very clear that I was not comfortable with anyone else disciplining my child that way. The same day, this person told my child to pack a bag and threatened to call child protective services.
Those moments were not isolated incidents. They were warnings I did not fully understand yet.
After staying somewhere else briefly, they asked to return to my apartment because they had obligations nearby. Against my better judgment, I allowed it with clear boundaries about when they needed to leave the apartment.
The next morning those boundaries were ignored.
What followed was a rapid escalation.
While I was preparing dinner for my child, my phone started ringing repeatedly. My hands were covered with raw food from cooking, so my child answered the phone on speaker. Within minutes, the door flew open and the person stormed into the kitchen in a rage.
They opened the oven and threw the dinner I had just prepared across the room. They screamed and belittled me while my child was nearby.
When I tried to make my child a backup meal, they shoved their hand into the food, smeared it onto my arm, and wiped their hands in my hair instead of washing them.
When I began cleaning the mess, the dustpan was kicked out of my hands.
At that moment I understood the situation had moved beyond conflict or anger. I no longer knew what this person was capable of.
I removed my child from the apartment and brought them to a neighbor’s home. I called mobile crisis services, who responded along with police to document the incident.
The locks to my home were changed that same day. All communication was blocked.
Afterward, the final message I received from them was simple: I was “dead” to them.
For someone who had spent months claiming to be on a spiritual journey toward healing and safety, the cruelty of that statement was striking. Words like that are meant to sever connection and leave emotional damage behind.
But the truth is much simpler.
Someone who treats another person this way is not safe to live with, and not safe to build a life around.
Abuse rarely begins with the worst incident. It grows in stages while the victim tries to rationalize the behavior, help the other person, or stabilize the situation.
Compassion can become vulnerability when it is offered to someone who refuses accountability for their own behavior.
My responsibility is not to fix someone else’s instability. My responsibility is to protect my child, my home, and my own safety.
Sometimes advocacy begins with telling the truth about the moment you finally chose safety.
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