How have you grown from self hate, healed and learned to redefine love after an abusive relationship? 🤎

MY LONG STORY:We had been friends since I was six and he was seven, he had anger issues growing up but he never put it on me. Since we were growing up together as friends and he had an abusive father, and I had absent parents we were extremely co dependent with one another. He would call me when he had issues with his father, in middle school everyone just knew to look for me when he had an episode, in 8th grade he comforted me through my suicidal depression and later in that same year he was officially diagnosed with Bipolar disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, PTSD, Anxiety and depression, but to me those were only official titles to all the behaviors of his I already knew. Entering into highschool I made a goal to reintegrate myself back into life and heal from my previous year of depression, and I ended up doing it well. Within my freshman year I had already a large friend group and dedicating myself to the clubs I was in. He was also entering into clubs and growing to have new friends but unlike me was not in a stage in his life where healing was an option so while I was becoming independent he still had a dependency on me. To me though this wasn’t a problem because at this point I had this type of relationship with him for 8 years. Reaching toward the middle of the year he made it clear to me he liked me more than a friend and I knew I loved him but didn’t love him in that way, he was fine with it. Fast forward some months Im only talking to him once a week for hour long phone calls catching each other up. Abruptly in February of that same year he told me I was fake and left me with only that. I asked him why and after some weeks he texted me that I was a “manipulative bitch”, that I was fake to him talking to him less and was a horrible person. I begged him to explain to me how and he didn’t instead for the next months (March-May) he would text me randomly telling me he’d make my life hell make sure no one talks to me ever wants to be close to me, that he would enjoy watching me suffer (his words), he’s tell my friends I was manipulative convince them that I was just using them, he’d physically threaten me and I begged his cousin to ask him to talk to me. She did and he texted me saying what do you want l told him I wanted our friendship back I begged him to let me call him and we called him for three hours of me begging for forgiveness, him saying that I was lucky because he chose to forgive me and then we were friends again (I literally didn’t care he emotionally, mentally and almost physically abused me bc I had years of attachment to him). One day he tells me about his girlfriend I made a comment that he was maybe moving to fast with her he told me I didn’t know him that I missed a lot and that I was being a bitch. At this point I said no more cause I sensed another cycle of abuse and I just stopped being friends with him. All summer I cried because I had a broken relationship with my parents and anytime I ever had a problem I had him but now I didn’t so I forced myself to not talk to anyone about the situation so that I could avoid becoming dependent on them like I did to him. During this time I was at an internship and made some friends and that’s when I realized I was never the problem his behavior was. Fast forward sophomore year we’re in the same history class and I just ignored him and in October he asked if he could talk to me. I said yes and we met up he said he went to his therapist and realized he messed up and gave me an apology that sounded scripted like something straight from a therapist mouth. I accepted it because I knew he had a whole lot of mental issues and he seemed sincere to me but also I was bias. Then not even a week later he told me he liked me and and tried to date me when I declined he said that I was crazy because he changed and then I decided no more at this point it was November of sophomore year. Fast forward I am about to go to freshman year of college and I realized that that one year of abuse still affects me: threats to make my life hell, fear of him coming to my house, physically threatening me at school, belittling my emotions of fear as cute and sweet because it meant that he really had control of me, isolating me from my friends, keeping tabs of the places I was at and making sure I knew he was watching me by having friends of mine tell me or texting me. Being completely honest until a friend this year who was there while this was happening told me “I can’t believe he abused you” I hadn’t thought of or really considered what he did as abuse because deep down I knew I didn’t want to admit that he really abused me and recognize that that experience happened to me.