I'm sorry to read that things ended like this, but it's not the first time I've heard of such events. My last dom ghosted me after a year, so really, there is no accounting for stupidity in this world! Try not to blame yourself, but instead, as an opportunity to learn.
At the moment, I strongly recommend that you take some time to focus on yourself. I've been a submissive for years now, but I always work on myself first and put myself as the first priority. Doing so helps to flag up the fakes early on who spout nonsense such as "You're a sub, so do what I tell you as I'm the dom here!". To give you an example, this is a message that landed in my inbox a few minutes ago:
"How are you? I am 40, 5’8” avg athletic build blk hair brown eyes looking for Real life long term submissive.. ideally someone open to live in, and/or open to breast implants( prefer very busty) but not a must.
Tell me more about you.. would you like to talk/text on phone? Phone#?"
The first thing I did was block him. Hopefully, you can see why, but the red flags here for me are:
1. It's a copy and paste message. Nothing about it is personal. He is clearly after a quick fix.
2. He wants someone to live with him; I am in the UK and he's in the USA. I don't see that working well!
3. And breast implants! Now, whether or not that is something that I'd agree to have done is irrelevant. To bring something like that up in the first message is a red flag for me.
4. Tell me more about you... Um, try reading my profile, maybe?!
5. Immediately asking for my phone number. So bad! So so so so bad. This is probably one of the easier red flags to spot when someone wants to immediately move you from a secure platform to your private number ASAP.
Now, I'm not saying that all Doms/Dommes/Masters/Mistresses are bad, and I don't want this experience to put you off, but everyone regardless of their role needs to do their homework and take precautions to stay safe. Boundaries and you come first. No questions asked there in my opinion, but sadly, a lot of people are incredibly talented at being manipulative, even abusive.
Take the time to get to know someone and learn along the way. As long as you are learning, you'll grow, and with that, you'll meet kind and respectful people as you will be able to assert yourself without fear of being a 'bad sub' etc. Background checks are also important when assessing if it is safe to play with someone. Tools and laws vary from country to country (I live in the UK), but really, once you have someone's name and number, you can hunt through Google and see what there is. Reverse image search is useful too. Here, all limited businesses have to be publicly registered; I have caught a few people out with that register! One 'dom' lied about his name and took 13yrs off his age on his profile (not sure if he's on here as well). There is also a way to request info here from the local police teams to check if the person has any convictions/reports of domestic violence. See what is available to you and use it wisely to equip yourself.
Please feel free to DM me if you wish. I'm always happy to chat with like-minded people and I remember how daunting it is to start venturing into BDSM.
Stay safe! <3