I've been emotionally and sexually abused. To make it clear, it wasn't by family or my husband. They were by friends and an ex-boyfriend. In 8th grade, I moved to a different state due to my dad's job four days before Christmas. I was fourteen and a new Christian. In January, I started going to a Christian school and hit it off with a guy at school. We started school the exact same day and we had a lot in common. I had a crush on him, but I didn't tell him. We lived really close by to each other, we even carpooled to school together. He was my first friend after I moved. There were rumors he had feelings for me too. That summer he went on a missions trip so I didn't get to spend time with him over the summer. I actually still have a bracelet he got for me that was hand-made. When we went back to school, he had changed. I made a friend who started school and we seemed to hit it off too. But when my friend came back to school after the missions trip, he started hanging out with her quite a bit. I got jealous and suspected he had feelings for her, so I told him I had feelings for him. After I told him though, he changed. He started teasing me about my weight and saying really terrible things to me. In the science classroom, there was a jar with a giant spider in it. He knew how afraid I was of bugs, especially spiders. He put the jar right in my face and I freaked out. I ran to the other side of the classroom and curled up in a fetal position underneath the teacher's desk. He just laughed at me. Another time he caught a bee during lunch (we ate outside) and put it in a bag. Just before class I opened my locker to get my books and I found a plastic bag in my locker. I thought it was strange since I didn't remember putting it there. I picked it up and there was a bee jumping around (alive) in the bag! I was so freaked out! I took the bag to my class and asked "Who did this?" My friend was laughing and said he did it. He ended up getting in trouble for it (if I remember right he got a couple weeks of detention after school for it). I wanted to leave, but every now and then he'd reel me back in saying something really sweet to me. I decided to stay after school with him and help him with his detention. He too advantage of my kindness though. He got possessive with my new friend. Every time I'd try to hang out with her at school he'd get really mad at me. Another time I got so upset with him being nasty towards me I actually slapped him across the face. I couldn't take it anymore, he kept getting nastier and nastier towards me, I ended up leaving the school.
In 11th grade, I started going to a new school (I changed schools a lot growing up). The school had just opened and on the first day we had a party. There was this senior who was the hottest guy I had ever seen. He was also in ROTC. I talked to him a bit at the party trying to get to know him. We seemed to have some things in common, when all of a sudden, he touched me in a way that I shouldn't have been touched. Part of me liked it, but another part of me was scared. Nothing like this had ever happened to me. I didn't really know what to do, especially since it was out in the open around other people. No one else noticed it. I later found out he was gay and it scared me even more. He had a boyfriend and I assumed they probably had sex and it scared me because I wondered, "what all has this guy touched before touching me?" I told my gynecologist and she said it wasn't anything to physically worry about. I asked her not to tell my parents, and she didn't. By I eventually told my parents. They said I had to tell the principal and I did. All they did was say we couldn't be around each other at school. For the most part, I avoided him, but then we had an art class together. It was jewelry design class (which by the way, is the only art class I've ever taken that I almost failed in). We sat at the same table. One day he brought his palm pilot to class and was playing music on it in class. A song came on I really liked and I asked him what song it was. He refused to tell me, so I grabbed his palm pilot (which was in the middle of the table) to look at the song and he got really pissed off. He said, "Let go of my palm pilot!" He grabbed my arm and started twisting it. He pushed me off my chair and I fell on a cement floor. After that happened, I told the principal (again) and they had me change classes.
After I graduated high school, I had an online boyfriend. He was my "dream guy." Everything seemed to be going really well. He was Catholic, but he didn't like that I wanted to wait to have sex until after getting married. He told me, "I'm going to make you no longer a nun." I probably should've figured at that moment that I should've gotten out of the relationship, but I didn't. He never wanted to meet me in person which was kinda suspicious too. He started looking at porn and that really upset me. I thought, "If he's going to look at any naked women it should be his girlfriend!" So I did something I didn't want to do....I sent him pornographic images of myself. It was very awkward, but I thought, "If I do this, he'll want to stay with me surely." At first he said I looked very beautiful, which no guy had ever told me. Then he started saying things I needed to change that I couldn't help. But I did it anyway, no matter that I wasn't suppose to do it because of skin problems that I have. Eventually, he broke up with me saying "You're just too depressed and I can't handle you anymore. But we can still be friends." It really hurt, and I asked for another chance, but this had already been my second chance and he didn't want to give me another chance. So I tried to just be friends with him. Then he started saying really mean stuff to me, but I tried to just take it. Then I found out he liked one of my friends, and she liked him too. I wanted them to be happy, even though it hurt me, so I hooked them up. He continued to get worse with me and I told his girlfriend she needed to talk to him to cut it out. She said, "I'm his girlfriend I'm supposed to just agree with him." I told her, "If he was treating you this way when I was going out with him, I would've said something to him." He then messaged me saying he wanted nothing to do with me anymore. I was so devastated that I tried to take my life. I had a massive overdose and I called him and told him - he hung up on me. This was my first suicide attempt. I later found out I had just been a guinea pig to him and he wanted to test to see how far he could go with me. He even started spreading lies about me like I had cut myself and sent him pictures of my cuts. Shortly after my husband and I got married, he contacted me again. He said he wanted to try to be friends again (this was a year after my suicide attempt). I was still upset with him, but I wanted to be forgiving as well. I asked my husband if it was okay with him if I talked to my ex and he said it was fine as long as he didn't hurt me again. I started talking to him again, but then old feelings started coming back. I told him I couldn't talk to him anymore because of old feelings and he attacked my husband saying he was jealous I was talking to him. I cut it off after that.
The most recent abuse I went through was a year ago. I had a bit of a rocky relationship with my dad (which is much better now) and I wanted someone who could be like a father to me. I realized I started seeing one of my husband's good friend like a father. So I told him and I said he didn't need to say anything because I figured he didn't see me like a daughter. He said I worried too much. He said he was okay with being a father-figure in my life. The first month was really good, he even gave a bass guitar and was teaching me how to play it! But then things started going bad. He kept saying hurtful things, but each time he'd start reeling me back in. I started working for him for free, but the same thing kept happening. Eventually I started cutting because I was so hurt. Then he didn't want to talk to me anymore. I ended up having a second massive overdose trying to kill myself, and once again I had failed. While I was in the hospital, he had asked someone from his church to see if I was okay (my father-in-law had told him what happened). I started thinking, "Maybe he does still care about me." I texted him and told him I had hoped we could start over. He said maybe and that I just needed to focus on getting better. While at the hospital, I started to realize how much people cared about me, and how much God cared about me. Suddenly I was no longer depressed! I started patching things up with this guy, but then he called me an idiot. I was so depressed again, I almost cut myself again. I realized he had too much power over my life, so I told him I couldn't talk to him for a while until he no longer had power over me. A few months went by and then he blocked me on Facebook. I started cutting more and more. At one point he unblocked me, and I ha high hopes again, but then he blocked me again and told a friend "I accidentally unblocked her." Before we moved in February, my husband tried to make things right with this guy so when we moved they could be on good terms. But no, that didn't happen. He kept accusing me of things and saying hurtful things. Even his wife started doing the same thing, even to the point of accusing me of trying to make the relationship sexual. I kept cutting, to the point where I was doing it three times a week. My husband was so furious he blocked them both on Facebook and hasn't talked to them again since.
I know this i a long post, but I tried to not include everything because it would be much longer and unnecessary. The thing about abuse, whether it's emotional, sexual, or physical, it is difficult to get out of. There's a part of you that wants to get out, but there's another part of you that thinks things will change if you just hold on a little longer. But things won't get better. They will continue to get worse until it gets to the point where they either kill you or you end up killing yourself. If you are in an abusive relationship, get out as soon as possible! If you have children, get them out too because there's a good chance that they could become abused as well. You are worth more than having to go through this!
If you are in an abusive relationship, go to www.crisistextline.org. It's free and confidential.
