All That Glitters (Unfamous Series, Book #2.5)

Prologue | An Open Letter

When I originally wrote Unfamous and approached the domestic violence situation with Yoshi, I didn’t elaborate on it too much, I just expressed what I thought about it in general and shared snippets of the lessons I’d learned, but after making the web series and hearing of people I knew and some of my followers that went through similar situations, I realised how important Yoshi’s story was.

The day after my nineteenth birthday I got out of my first super serious relationship. This guy was my first love, so leaving him was really hard, but I just felt like we’d had our time. That relationship taught me a lot about myself and the way that I treated others, so I vowed that I would take the lessons that I learned from being with him and apply them to my next relationship so that I could be a better partner. I promised to be more patient, compassionate, considerate, giving, more open to compromise…the list goes on.

Just before I entered my second year at university, I started a new relationship with this guy who I’d been crushing on for YEARS! I always saw him around when I went out with my friends (he was a bit of a crowd favourite); one day we got talking and it turned out that he liked me back –I was gassed, I mean, how often is it that you actually get with your crush? We started going out, and it was fun at first, but the more I got to know him, the more I noticed that something wasn’t right.

It started off with little arguments (and for those of you who have watched me ranting on YouTube, you know that I have a bit of a mouth on me lol); he would do or say things that were completely uncalled for and extremely out of line and I would go off. We always made up later on though, in the most effective way we knew how; really good make up sex.

The arguments became more frequent and always seemed to escalate more every time. They became a little physical, and my friends warned me to leave him, but I didn’t see the physical aspect as anything too serious at the time, just little pushes and smacks from both of us that weren’t anything to cry about, so I stayed.

I noticed as time went on, that the physical side of the arguments were growing and that he was becoming more aggressive, so every now and then I had to address it. He was highly emotional and would tell me harrowing stories about his childhood and past relationships, often breaking down in tears. I felt sorry for him. I convinced myself that it wasn’t his fault that he was this way; he just didn’t know any better because of all of those terrible experiences. I forced myself to be patient with him because it wasn’t like he was a bad person; when we weren’t fighting, things were wonderful between us. I kept excusing his behaviour, forgiving him for things that he had no place saying or doing, and as time went on, the more I excused, the more he took my compassion for granted. I was getting fed up and told him that if it continued that I would leave him. He became even more dramatic; there were more sob stories, more tears, and frequent threats to commit suicide. It was exhausting.

He started playing these twisted power games with me, doing silly and sometimes cruel things to get a reaction out of me as if he was a child. When I’d call him out on his bullshit, he’d flip it so that it seemed as if it was my fault, as if I made him do it, then proceed to calling me out on my flaws as if it excused his actions.

I had to take on more of a nurturing role with him, reeling myself in to keep things calm, but it didn’t work -me diluting myself only made him worse. So I stopped reacting to him, but he continued to push and push, my indifferent submission making him up the levels and the physical stuff got worse. The first time he hit me (what I considered to be) too hard was in front of my friends; he’d gotten pissed off over a photo he’d seen on my Facebook profile. I was livid! Of course my friends warned me again to leave him, but by then our fights had become part of our daily routine. We’d fight, we’d fuck, we’d get over it. I was so used to it that even though I knew it wasn’t right, I accepted it because it was just how we were.

He was really insecure and he would do and say things to try and make me feel the same way, but although I wasn’t super confident at the time, I still liked myself enough not to let it get to me, so he tried to make me jealous instead. I’m not really a jealous person, so when other women would fawn over him when we went out, I’d just do my own thing; at the end of the day he was mine man so they could flirt all they wanted, but he was coming home with me –as if that was something to boast about, lol. It became irritating, him trying to wind me up with other females, so finally I got fed up and sarcastically reacted to him, making him jealous about my past lovers. That’s when he snapped.

He locked me in my dorm room and beat and taunted me for almost two hours. Eventually I realised that crying and pleading with him to stop wasn’t going to help me, so I had no choice but to fight back. Eventually help came. I ended it with him that night and kicked him out.

Although the relationship was over, he didn’t leave me alone. He stalked me, had his family members calling and threatening me because he’d lied about what happened and convinced them that I had sent people after him. I had grown men telling me that if anything happened to him that they would come after me.

I became mildly depressed and stopped going to lectures altogether. Instead I’d stay in my dorm, play video games, hang out with my flatmates and get high every day, because being sober felt shitty. When I was sober I had no choice but to reflect on how my life had gone downhill. Needless to say, I didn’t pass my second year and ended up dropping out of uni. With time, I stopped feeling sorry for myself, eased up on the drugs and became ‘Scotty Unfamous’.

In this book I portray Yoshi’s version of events during her time at Brompton with Ace. As a side note, if you have not read Book Two of Unfamous, make sure you get a copy because this book bridges the gap between books Two and Three and will contains spoilers.

I have slipped in bits of my own story to illustrate what it’s really like to be in an abusive relationship. I am very honest in this book, so some scenes may be disturbing, but honesty is needed. There are those of you who may have gone through similar situations that you can relate to, and for those of you that haven’t, I hope that this gives you a better understanding and lets you know the signs to look out for. No one ever thinks that they will end up in these situations, I don’t think any of us who have been through it believed that it would happen to us either, but it did. If it does happen to you, you owe it to yourself to leave or seek help before you no longer have the option.

·         One in four women experience domestic violence.

·         One incident of domestic violence is reported to the police every minute.

·         On average, two women are killed by a current or former male partner every week.

(Source: WomensAid.org.uk)

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