Me Too
October is National Domestic Violence Awareness month. The topic of it hits home and is not an easy thing for anyone to talk about, I think. It has been a year since the #MeToo movement has gone viral and a little over a year since I realized I was in an abusive relationship and left. I would also like to acknowledge that, if any of you feel you're in a toxic relationship, you should leave. It is extremely hard, and I understand, but it will never get better. Ever. Though I feel it is a safer place on the internet now, I disabled comments, and will likely never choose to open them. If anyone reading this feels a bitter or sour way about what I have to say, I suggest you just leave the blog as I finally have the strength to tell this story. I am not asking for you to believe me, I am only doing this to symbolize that my abuser no longer has the mental hold over me as he used to. I also want everyone reading this to know I consider myself a survivor, not a victim.
Going into freshman year, I was naive and foolish. I didn’t know how to fit in, I didn’t know how to not care or overthink. I was not raised in a sheltered environment, but I had only recently moved to that district, which was very different from where I grew up. In my first few months of being a fourteen-year-old freshman, I started to talk to someone. This person was nice, but not altogether a good person for me and it was starting to drain me mentally. He just hadn't understood how to help himself yet and it had an effect on me, but this boy was never bad to me. While all this was unraveling, I didn’t notice someone else was watching my vulnerability. Just how an apex predator waits for its prey to get hurt or distracted, he watched me and when I was at my weakest, he got me. It was slow and cunning and now that I look back, frightening at how well he was able to manage to get into my life and destroy it so quickly. This relationship was normal at first. Absolutely normal except for the fact that he was eighteen and I was still fourteen. And I’m not saying I didn’t hit puberty yet, but I was still very much developing at the time and had not fully matured at all in any sense yet. I struggled just with the fact that he would mentally make me feel worthless as he, of course, couldn’t go on a ‘normal’ date with me nor was I allowed to do many things I wanted to. He made me quit activities and not talk to people he deemed as a negative in my life. But as it went on it grew increasingly worse. He’d do things to me despite me saying “I’m not ready” and “no.” He’d make me compliant or he’d complain about how terrible I am and choose to not see or talk to me for days for saying no. I was abused emotionally, mentally, and physically. Though the physical sense wasn't noticeable, it was still terrible and frightening.
If you’re now asking how I didn’t see any of this, or why I would choose to stay, it's because when the abuse started to get really bad I was still fourteen going into newly being fifteen. I was a child; When he said ‘I love you,’ I believed it. I did not know yet that those three words could easily be used in anything, and that what he was doing was just gaslighting, and manipulating my feelings to make me more compliant. This ordeal had left me bullied by people at school and suicidal. People at my school, who still have no idea what happened to me would ruthlessly tell me things, and it took a toll. He pushed me to the edge, I was tired of everyone at school putting me down and him telling me I'm worthless. I tried to kill myself. I am very far from that now, and I no longer accept people who taunt the situation, but it was a scary time. I couldn't even succeed at that, then I really did feel worthless. All of my tormentors were correct to me. Now I know I am an amazing individual, but when I look back on those times, it was very difficult for me to come to terms with feeling accepted or wanted by anyone at all. The taunting was everywhere and I had no way to escape it.
I was the victim of a terrible situation that I dread any child to go through. I am in no way or shape or form perfect, but this is my story and I believe it should be told. Not just for my own peace, but for anyone I know or anyone who comes across this and needs to know they are not the only one. I thought I was the only one, but when you look at statistics for teen domestic abuse, it really perplexes you to realize you probably do know at least one person suffering. The last time I spoke to this man, he told me I was too scared to say anything, taunting me. Which, in all honesty, I was. But then I realized, I need my own closure. When I talk about closure, I do not mean I still have any form of feeling for him, I don't wish anything negative on him either, because I am a firm believer in karma. It will all come to him in due time. What I mean is I have to stop being angry with myself and to let go of what happened to me. That's why I won't even write his name here. Any time I speak it, it's only giving power to him and what happened. He doesn't deserve either of those satisfactions.
My parents were around me, but you have to understand that I was in a terrible depression. I withdrew from people in my life who only wanted me away from this man. He put it in my head that they all hated me, that he would take care of me when I turned eighteen. I didn't accept my parent's help, anytime they warned him to go away, he came back. Out of the number of times we got back together, I only pushed for it twice, and that was at the beginning of the relationship. He would leave and then wriggle and convince me to let him back into my life. The rebellious emotions I was feeling and acting on was fueled by the things I was being told. I used to be influenced very easily, something I had to stop allowing after I left my abuser.
Someone who I loved and thought reciprocated the love back was really just my rapist and my abuser. At the same time that I still feel upset with the situation, I also pity him. Only a very sick and immature person could ever do that. When he convinced me to manipulate people for money, he would tell me how he loved when I did that. A grown man needed me, fifteen little old me, to manipulate people for money using my "sexuality," yet that wasn't how I got it. He told me my body was far too grown for his liking, and I'm not saying I have no figure, but I am not too grown. He would tell me how he liked girls who looked younger, he had an innocence kink. All of these should have been warning signs, but I had never dealt with anything like this before. I went through my first two years of high school picked on because of him and my situation. I looked physically ill and I never had tumor growth until I met this man. He stressed me out to the point where my body would give out, I’d convulse, I lost weight to where I was a stick skinny; I went from one hundred and thirty pounds to ninety. He believes I ruined his life. He dropped out of college because he did not have the will to keep going with it, not because of me. I, a child, had no dictation over the “ruining” of this mans life. I did not ruin him. He did it to himself. I was blamed for something I had nothing to do with. I even did his homework at one point and continually offered to help over things. He would make notes for himself with plan B's for his life, not anything with how he should continue with anything good or how to be successful. He was always resorting to worst and easiest case scenarios. I tried to encourage him to do something valuable with his life. Instead, he chose to do what he called any good mans last resort. He joined a branch of armed forces. In all honesty, I always found that to be extremely disrespectful. He mocked people in it, actually believed communism was a good thing(he cheated on me one with another girl who also liked communism), and never saw it as a respected thing. And now he gains from it. People have died for him and the country he disrespects and he now acts high and mighty while still believing all the things he did.
To finish, I’d like to say that if you are dealing with any of these things, or being abused, or assaulted, or raped, anything that is not okay, please find help or leave. It is a terrible situation and it will never get better. No one who can do these type of things can have any form of redemption. You deserve better, it doesn't matter who you are. Male, female, neither, straight, gay, and so on. Again, I won't go any further into detail, allow comments or name anyone. This was me looking for peace and finding the courage to allow people to know the awful that some people can bring. I won't name him because mine and countless other stories should not be about the perpetrator, it should be about the survivor and perseverance. Again, if you feel any type of way, I do not want any form of argument, and I do not look to try and sway your views. Everyone is entitled to whatever they want to be entitling, and I won't try to sway you. I know my story. I do not want anything other than to be done with this chapter, to stop harboring fear and for other girls to be warned that grown men should not be with you if you are still a child, there is a reason they'll choose you, and I thoroughly believe most of the time it won't be a good moral choice. Thank you to everyone that supports me and supported me through this. I would not have been able to ever say a word if you didn't give me strength and love every day.
Domestic Abuse Hotline: 1-800-799-7233
Going into freshman year, I was naive and foolish. I didn’t know how to fit in, I didn’t know how to not care or overthink. I was not raised in a sheltered environment, but I had only recently moved to that district, which was very different from where I grew up. In my first few months of being a fourteen-year-old freshman, I started to talk to someone. This person was nice, but not altogether a good person for me and it was starting to drain me mentally. He just hadn't understood how to help himself yet and it had an effect on me, but this boy was never bad to me. While all this was unraveling, I didn’t notice someone else was watching my vulnerability. Just how an apex predator waits for its prey to get hurt or distracted, he watched me and when I was at my weakest, he got me. It was slow and cunning and now that I look back, frightening at how well he was able to manage to get into my life and destroy it so quickly. This relationship was normal at first. Absolutely normal except for the fact that he was eighteen and I was still fourteen. And I’m not saying I didn’t hit puberty yet, but I was still very much developing at the time and had not fully matured at all in any sense yet. I struggled just with the fact that he would mentally make me feel worthless as he, of course, couldn’t go on a ‘normal’ date with me nor was I allowed to do many things I wanted to. He made me quit activities and not talk to people he deemed as a negative in my life. But as it went on it grew increasingly worse. He’d do things to me despite me saying “I’m not ready” and “no.” He’d make me compliant or he’d complain about how terrible I am and choose to not see or talk to me for days for saying no. I was abused emotionally, mentally, and physically. Though the physical sense wasn't noticeable, it was still terrible and frightening.
If you’re now asking how I didn’t see any of this, or why I would choose to stay, it's because when the abuse started to get really bad I was still fourteen going into newly being fifteen. I was a child; When he said ‘I love you,’ I believed it. I did not know yet that those three words could easily be used in anything, and that what he was doing was just gaslighting, and manipulating my feelings to make me more compliant. This ordeal had left me bullied by people at school and suicidal. People at my school, who still have no idea what happened to me would ruthlessly tell me things, and it took a toll. He pushed me to the edge, I was tired of everyone at school putting me down and him telling me I'm worthless. I tried to kill myself. I am very far from that now, and I no longer accept people who taunt the situation, but it was a scary time. I couldn't even succeed at that, then I really did feel worthless. All of my tormentors were correct to me. Now I know I am an amazing individual, but when I look back on those times, it was very difficult for me to come to terms with feeling accepted or wanted by anyone at all. The taunting was everywhere and I had no way to escape it.
I was the victim of a terrible situation that I dread any child to go through. I am in no way or shape or form perfect, but this is my story and I believe it should be told. Not just for my own peace, but for anyone I know or anyone who comes across this and needs to know they are not the only one. I thought I was the only one, but when you look at statistics for teen domestic abuse, it really perplexes you to realize you probably do know at least one person suffering. The last time I spoke to this man, he told me I was too scared to say anything, taunting me. Which, in all honesty, I was. But then I realized, I need my own closure. When I talk about closure, I do not mean I still have any form of feeling for him, I don't wish anything negative on him either, because I am a firm believer in karma. It will all come to him in due time. What I mean is I have to stop being angry with myself and to let go of what happened to me. That's why I won't even write his name here. Any time I speak it, it's only giving power to him and what happened. He doesn't deserve either of those satisfactions.
My parents were around me, but you have to understand that I was in a terrible depression. I withdrew from people in my life who only wanted me away from this man. He put it in my head that they all hated me, that he would take care of me when I turned eighteen. I didn't accept my parent's help, anytime they warned him to go away, he came back. Out of the number of times we got back together, I only pushed for it twice, and that was at the beginning of the relationship. He would leave and then wriggle and convince me to let him back into my life. The rebellious emotions I was feeling and acting on was fueled by the things I was being told. I used to be influenced very easily, something I had to stop allowing after I left my abuser.
Someone who I loved and thought reciprocated the love back was really just my rapist and my abuser. At the same time that I still feel upset with the situation, I also pity him. Only a very sick and immature person could ever do that. When he convinced me to manipulate people for money, he would tell me how he loved when I did that. A grown man needed me, fifteen little old me, to manipulate people for money using my "sexuality," yet that wasn't how I got it. He told me my body was far too grown for his liking, and I'm not saying I have no figure, but I am not too grown. He would tell me how he liked girls who looked younger, he had an innocence kink. All of these should have been warning signs, but I had never dealt with anything like this before. I went through my first two years of high school picked on because of him and my situation. I looked physically ill and I never had tumor growth until I met this man. He stressed me out to the point where my body would give out, I’d convulse, I lost weight to where I was a stick skinny; I went from one hundred and thirty pounds to ninety. He believes I ruined his life. He dropped out of college because he did not have the will to keep going with it, not because of me. I, a child, had no dictation over the “ruining” of this mans life. I did not ruin him. He did it to himself. I was blamed for something I had nothing to do with. I even did his homework at one point and continually offered to help over things. He would make notes for himself with plan B's for his life, not anything with how he should continue with anything good or how to be successful. He was always resorting to worst and easiest case scenarios. I tried to encourage him to do something valuable with his life. Instead, he chose to do what he called any good mans last resort. He joined a branch of armed forces. In all honesty, I always found that to be extremely disrespectful. He mocked people in it, actually believed communism was a good thing(he cheated on me one with another girl who also liked communism), and never saw it as a respected thing. And now he gains from it. People have died for him and the country he disrespects and he now acts high and mighty while still believing all the things he did.
To finish, I’d like to say that if you are dealing with any of these things, or being abused, or assaulted, or raped, anything that is not okay, please find help or leave. It is a terrible situation and it will never get better. No one who can do these type of things can have any form of redemption. You deserve better, it doesn't matter who you are. Male, female, neither, straight, gay, and so on. Again, I won't go any further into detail, allow comments or name anyone. This was me looking for peace and finding the courage to allow people to know the awful that some people can bring. I won't name him because mine and countless other stories should not be about the perpetrator, it should be about the survivor and perseverance. Again, if you feel any type of way, I do not want any form of argument, and I do not look to try and sway your views. Everyone is entitled to whatever they want to be entitling, and I won't try to sway you. I know my story. I do not want anything other than to be done with this chapter, to stop harboring fear and for other girls to be warned that grown men should not be with you if you are still a child, there is a reason they'll choose you, and I thoroughly believe most of the time it won't be a good moral choice. Thank you to everyone that supports me and supported me through this. I would not have been able to ever say a word if you didn't give me strength and love every day.
Domestic Abuse Hotline: 1-800-799-7233