I met a man just before I started my second year of university, when I was 19 years old; he was 17 years older than me. Within weeks, and before the start of term and before my student housemates had moved in, he had moved into my room. When my housemates arrived to start term they were horrified. Weeks later, we had moved out together into a shared flat. Before I reached the start of the second term of that year, I had attempted suicide, and was submitting my request to leave uni. I spent the following five years trying to leave him. Eventually, my sister rescued me from this relationship, when I had a breakdown and could not carry on anymore. It is so hard to talk about this time of my life. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to tell the world what happened. The term coercive control is so helpful in analysing what happened in those years. It unlocks what happened to me, it explains his behaviour, it allows me to forgive myself and to stop blaming myself.