I've been living with my roommate for almost two months now. We met over our school's off-campus apartment site. The extent of our relationship was a handful of email threads and a couple of video calls. This is when he told me he was a grad student who taught a couple of upper level undergraduate classes. Given that I'm a freshman, I thought this was fine since we wouldn't cross paths til I moved out (I only planned on living here for a year).
He seemed fine at first, albeit a bit rude at points. I chalked this off to miscommunication given that we're both international students.
One of the first clues that something was wrong was when I saw his name on my schedule as I was enrolling for classes. When I confronted him about this, he told me he was actually a TA on one of the classes he knew I'd be taking. He'd lied about it. Red flag number one. I simply changed sections and moved on with my life.
A couple weeks after moving in, I asked him if I could be put on the utilities, given that I'm also on the lease and we split 50/50. This seemed completely reasonable to me. He still said no. Red flag number two. Since I was at that point getting used to life in a foreign country, I decided not to reiterate my question. I thought that maybe he hadn't understood what I asked.
Now, the crux of this whole thing. A couple weeks ago, he sent me a message saying he would be cutting off the internet for "a week or so." This would be devastating for me since I work from home. I asked him to please not do that, and to please discuss stuff like this with me next time instead of giving me an ultimatum. He fucking raged. He told me he was the "primary resident," that this was "his apartment" and that I was being "extremely rude" for not following with what he wanted and "making an issue." I had an anxiety attack given that, to ym eyes, I hadn't done anything rude, and my requests were reasonable.
When he got home, he started yelling at me about how disrespectful and rude I'd been by ordering him to do things (I got screenshots of our convo and I literally asked "could you please don't cut the internet since I need it to work?" which doesn't seem like an order to me); how this was his apartment, not ours; how he took every decision when it came to the apartment; how next time he'd not ask me; how if this happened again I'd have to move out; how he'd stop giving me a breakdown of rent and utilities each month, and just telling me how much to pay; how he did me a favor by putting me on the lease; among other things.
Obviously, I know he can't kick me out, but I also do not want to keep living here. While I managed to calm him down this time, I'm in constant fear of angering him again. I'm as quiet as possible, I get into my room as soon as I get here, and I don't leave my room when he's here so that I don't have to talk to him. I was a total of 4 hours outside my room this past weekend.
He's made it clear he's in control of this apartment, and by extension, me. He has power over me both at home and at school. I feel scared and anxious every time I leave my room. I don't think I can keep living like this, and I don't know what to do.
My school has a domestic violence program but I don't know whether I qualify. I read that it can also be emotional and financial control over another person, but I'm unsure as to what to do. My lease includes a provision to break it without consequence if I'm in reasonable fear of domestic violence (also, my state includes mental harm, and feeling threatened or frightened, as part of domestic violence). However, I feel like I'd be abusing this clause if I were to use it, as I don't know if this is domestic violence.
What do I do? I don't really have a support network in the US so I don't know who to reach out to. Please help.
Pardon my rambling and typos. I'm tired from trying to study all day.
tl;dr: my roommate might have committed domestic violence? I'm unsure and need help as how to proceed.
Submitted September 29, 2019 at 07:36PM by blueboi8 https://ift.tt/2m9oPyz
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