'When I posted about my breakup, over 20 women reached out with stories about the same man.'

Leesa Scanlan thought she'd found her fairytale romance.

They met by chance. Leesa was the one who decided to be brave and strike up a conversation.

"He left me a note with his number. It was like a movie," she told Mamamia.

Online, their connection only grew. Good night texts. Good morning messages.

"I'm pinching myself, you even like me."

"You're probably the most special person I've ever met."

Liam* was handsome, charming and seemed genuinely interested in getting to know her.

"It felt like a dream from the start," Leesa said.

But dreams, as Leesa would learn, can quickly turn into nightmares.

Watch: Can you spot the red flags of domestic violence? Post continues below.

Just three weeks in, the first red flag appeared during an argument about her male friends. But Leesa chose to ignore her intuition, blinded by the hope of what could be.

"He made a big deal out of the fact I had male friends," she said.

"He started to define what was normal, and he'd say things like, 'You've been single for so long you don't know what's normal in a relationship.'"

The manipulation was subtle, but effective. Soon, Leesa found herself questioning her own judgment.

"Because he was so wonderful on the other side, I was like, 'I don't want to lose this relationship; all the wonderful things. Maybe it isn't normal,'" she said.

The pattern became predictable: explosive arguments followed by the silent treatment. Liam would gaslight her, claiming she hadn't told him about plans she knew she'd mentioned weeks earlier.

"Over time, he started to make me feel like I was going crazy," she said.

Ashamed and confused, Leesa began distancing herself from friends and family, keeping the relationship's dark side hidden.

Leesa thought she'd met her dream man. Image: Supplied.

A few months in, a single social media comment changed everything.

When Leesa posted a photo of them together, a friend she hadn't seen in years reached out with a chilling message: "Do you know he's been posted in one of these, 'Girl, is this your man?' pages?"

Leesa's heart dropped.

"I opened the message and I felt sick," she said.

"I brought it up to him, and he blew it off. He said it was old. 'Those women thought they were dating me at the same time, they weren't,'" she recalled him saying at the time.

Desperate to believe him, Leesa chose not to look at the evidence.

But the universe wasn't finished trying to warn her.

A month later, an anonymous email arrived at Leesa's work address.

"It had further warnings about him and the type of behaviour, the gaslighting," she said.

"I didn't respond. I felt like my entire world had come crashing down.

"Reading everything that was in there, at first I went numb. There was so much evidence of multiple women being hurt by him."

For the first time, Leesa encountered the term "narcissistic abuse".

Overwhelmed, she filed the email away — but couldn't forget it. 

When the same message appeared from an anonymous Instagram account, she could no longer ignore the truth.

"He was so supportive of my goals, so attentive, so wonderful and then this really awful side… My brain just couldn't compute that it was the same person doing both of those things," she said.

"In the times he was manipulating me, gaslighting me, having been able to read the fact numerous women had been through this abuse with this same man, allowed me to be like it's not you, this is him.

"That was actually what saved me and helped me leave."

Leesa's received multiple messages from other women about Liam. Image: Supplied.

After six months, Leesa ended the relationship and finally told her loved ones what had been happening.

Their reactions said everything.

"I'd be relaying a story to them and the room would go silent, and they'd be like, 'Leesa, what the hell?," she said.

"I felt embarrassed… I've never felt more fooled in my life.

"These people are shape-shifters. They turn themselves into what you want them to be… They start to slowly manipulate, strip all the things you love about yourself away from you until you start believing you're not worthy of anything else."

When Leesa shared her story on social media, the response was overwhelming.

"It opened the floodgates," she said. "Every week a new woman would find me and send me a message saying, 'I've had the same experience with that person' of varying levels."

In total, 16 women contacted her directly, and she knows of another 11 who've had negative experiences with Liam.

She hopes other women can learn from her story. Image: Supplied.

While she didn't feel she had enough evidence for criminal charges, Leesa was able to file a police report of information — something that stays on file if future complaints are made.

"Women don't know they're able to go in and report behaviour that could escalate," she said.

"He was never physically abusive or aggressive with me, but as women, you just don't know what someone's capable of."

Her message to others is simple: "Not all abuse is loud."

Emotional and psychological abuse can cut just as deep. 

She wants women to know about South Australia's Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme and domestic violence leave — 10 days of paid leave available to all Australian employees.

"I was able to use that when I was in the thick of it, and I'd never heard of it before," she said.

Months later, Leesa is still processing the trauma. But she's found something powerful in the experience: the strength of women looking out for each other.

"If it wasn't for the women who had looked out for me, the lengths of sending me those warnings, I'd probably still be in that abusive relationship," she said.

"I feel lucky I've then been able to do that for other women. I speak to many of his other victims weekly. I've gained all of these new friends, which is nice."

*Name changed.

Feature image: Supplied.