The memories are still there… and they hurt...

I remember the night I met jerk who turned me into the woman I am now, and I have to say that if I could travel back in time and give myself a piece of advice it would be to stay away from him. But I can’t and I didn’t, and now I’m stuck with all those horrible memories and the feeling that I am worthless.

To those out there who think that everything is the victim’s fault, until you’ve been in their shoes you’ll never understand the torment we go through. We are not at fault for everything that happens to us; whether that be what we do to ourselves or what others do to us.

One night in the spring portion of my freshman year of high school, a friend of mine and I were hanging out and decided to go see one of her other friends that lived close by. So, we went over to her house and after a few minutes her brother walked in, and that was the night that I thought I met the perfect guy. We quickly exchanged numbers and started talking, and then we went on our first date where we had our first kiss. I felt butterflies in my stomach and at the time I thought they meant this was the guy for me, but looking back now maybe that was really the first warning sign.

For the first few months we were stuck in the honeymoon stage and I thought that I was deeply in love. Then after a year and a half things started to change, he became distant in how he spoke to me and he never wanted to leave his house. (By the way, he’s living with his mom and sister at the time, and still is to this day.) Any time we did go out, I felt as if I was more like his babysitter than his actual girlfriend, but I pushed those thoughts aside because I thought I was in love.

These feelings didn’t go away like I had hoped; they progressively became worse and more apparent the longer we stayed together. All he ever wanted to do was sit around his house and watch movies and do nothing else. I saw no harm in trying to get him to get out and do something productive, he didn’t even want to go to classes at community college until I practically had to force him to. And he quit that after just a month, then I told him to either try going back or get a job and thankfully his mother was on my side for that part.

So, he got a job at Long John Silvers. At the time, I didn’t care where he worked, I only cared that he was doing something other than sitting around playing and “creating” video games. But even with that he tried to give up, and so I once again began feeling more like a babysitter/nanny than a girlfriend. The way he spoke to me wasn’t any help; there were few times he spoke to me rather than at me.

The third year was probably the worst for me, because to me that marks the moments that I truly knew this man was destroying me and I could do nothing about it. That was when the emotional abuse became more apparent to those around me; they could tell I was not as care free as I once was. Now I worried about what I could/should say around and about him. I could feel his control on me, but I felt like there was nothing I could do about it. And so, the nightmare continued.

Towards the beginning of the fourth year I wasted with him, a friend of mine tried to tell me about the other girls he would talk to and about something he apparently did with his cousin. But of course, with the state of mind I was in I chose not to listen, and that is when things got worse than I ever imagined.

One night he said he wanted to go to Walmart to get a prepaid phone since his needed replacing and he didn’t have the money to go to a cell store. So, we drove to Walmart, got him his phone, and then headed back to his house. He was having trouble setting it up so we, again, drove to Walmart to see if they could help. They told him what to do and then we started heading back to his house, but on the way, he once again couldn’t figure out how to do something. So, once again, we drove to Walmart and they did everything for him, other than help him keep his old number with the new phone.

But we headed back to his house any way and sat in the living room, he was trying to put his old number on the phone and I tried to help him. He began yelling at me, so I made my way out the door to just go home. As I walked to my car he was yelling at me to get back in the house and how dare I walk away from him; I continued walking to my car, once unlocked I attempted to walk to the driver side door…

He stood in front of me and would not let me by; when I tried to go around him he grabbed my upper arms. I looked away from him and continuously told him to let me go, his grip tightened each time I spoke. He continued to yell at me to not leave, until thankfully his mom arrived home with his niece and nephew. Once she was out of the car she walked over to us and forcibly loosened his hold on me.

Once free, I quickly got into my car and drove home as fast as I could. I didn’t/wouldn’t even look at my phone for the rest of the night and for most of the next day. After that I distanced myself from him, until one day in April of 2015 I finally found the courage to say enough. I told him I needed a break, and even to the day I told him we were done, he mentally and emotionally damaged me more than I ever knew a person could be.

There are of course things that went on that I’m not comfortable sharing and I hope you understand why. I already hate having these memories, but some are more painful to relive than others.