When I was 15 years old, I swore that I knew what was best. I thought for sure that I knew exactly what I was doing, what I wanted, who I was. I thought I knew what love was. I thought a lot of things, and looking back, I was wrong. I was so absolutely wrong that it’s painful. There are some things I look back on and smile; and there are some things that I look back on and my entire body cringes. At 15 years old, I thought I knew everything there was to know about life. I thought that people were honest. I thought that people had the same heart as I did. Again, I was wrong.
On the first day of my freshman year of high school, I remember my friends and me talking about the senior boys. I remember being told that, “All the senior boys are looking at freshman girls this year!” I cannot tell you how excited I was listening to this statement. I’ve always been attracted to older guys, and 15 year-old-me was no different. I loved the thought that an older, more “sophisticated” guy could take an interest in me. Unfortunately, I got exactly what I wanted, but only in part. I got the older guy, but what I wasn’t expecting was the emotional damage over years of a tired, angry relationship. I wasn’t expecting to fight, screaming and crying, for multiple hours during many nights. I wasn’t expecting the constant feelings of shame and disgust. I wasn’t expecting to nearly lose a relationship with my mother and a lot of my friends. I wasn’t expecting to be the butt of a joke, yet I was. I was doing all of these things at a frightening velocity. Piece by piece, I became someone else.
I met him on December 24, 2012. I’d just turned 15 years old a month prior. I had an idea of who he was, so when the little messenger box popped up on my Facebook, I wasn’t completely shocked. He invited me to go with him to a party somewhere. I knew my mother would have a cow if I asked, and I didn’t particularly want to go, so I basically just said no, but thank you.
After that night, talking with him became a friendly habit. Every day I would check for messages, just in case he’d said something to me. We’d both agreed that neither of us wanted anything serious, we’d just be friends to each other. Over the next two or three months, I became attached. I would sit at the computer for hours just waiting for him to come online. One day, he came online and told me all about this party he went to and what he did to the girls he’d slept with. It broke my heart. I cried for a long time, and at that point I told him how I was feeling. I also didn’t talk to him for a few days because I kept picturing him with someone else and it made me sick. It was also really intimidating that other girls were sleeping with him and I wasn’t.
Most of my life, I’ve craved attention from men. It doesn’t sound good, but nonetheless, it’s the truth. I always tried my hardest to get it from my father, but nothing I did ever felt good enough. He was very in and out of my life, and nothing much has really changed. Although, back then I let that break me. I let that tear down who I was, or who I thought I was, anyway. I always wanted to feel like I was needed, desired. He did that for me. He gave me the attention and the love that I was so desperately craving. I wanted someone to be proud of me. I wanted someone to hold my hand and tell me I was beautiful. I wanted someone to take the sadness away. For a while, he did that for me too.
For most of our relationship, I was grounded or not allowed to communicate with him. I did anything he wanted me to. He barked a command, I followed through. I used to sneak out of every place I stayed at to go see him for a while. After my mom caught on, I stopped being allowed to go places. We had to be creative. He would pick me up in the middle of the day a block from my house. I regret doing this.
Being newly 15, I didn’t exactly have experience. I’d kissed a boy or two, but it’d never escalated past that point, not really. By the time we were together for 6 months, I’d finally given in. I was absolutely terrified. I was so nervous I nearly got sick. I remember thinking as I was running from my grandma’s to his house that it was the longest run of my life. I didn’t want to, but I did. I was too nice to say no. I’d gotten tired of hearing I was a tease. I was tired of feeling like I wasn’t good enough. I was tired of feeling like maybe he would love me if I did it. So I did. After that, he wanted it to happen nearly all the time. I didn’t ever want to. I know he could feel my hesitation every time I said, “Sure, I guess” because not once was I ever happy about doing it. I didn’t have a smile on my face, nor did I act like I was overly confident. The pain was horrible. I couldn’t sleep for nearly two weeks.
There were some nights when he’d pressure me to stay the night or do things that I didn’t want to, nor was I comfortable with. He’d lie to his family about my age. I didn’t want to meet them anyway.
There was one fight that we had that really made me question what I was doing. Two years into the relationship, I realized that I was such an idiot for staying. I’d gone to a nearby town with my friends. They were all meeting boys, so I asked if he wanted to meet up with us. After we got back to her house, he stopped by with a friend of his. He asked me if we could talk upstairs, I agreed. He yelled at me from around 10 o’ clock until about 4 am. I was disrespectful because I was in a car with a guy. I was a terrible person because I was around guys when he wasn’t there. He accused me of lying to him about what we were doing. He screamed. He yelled. He would walk out. After screaming at each other in the street, he left and wouldn’t talk to me. I was so embarrassed. It was one thing for him to do that to me when we were alone. It was another to do it in front of seven other people. I was fed up. I called him a bunch of times, no answer. So finally I sent him a message saying I’m done, don’t talk to me again. I told him he doesn’t get to talk to me like that. He doesn’t get to disrespect me and make me fear him.
He didn’t like that. He came back to where I was staying. He made me leave while everyone was asleep. I didn’t have a choice. He walked a few feet ahead of me all the way to a church parking lot. I was disgusted. I didn’t want to look at him. I didn’t want to even be near him. I hated him, truly.
I told him the same thing I did over text. He didn’t like that, either. I was sitting against the church wall. I was so mad that I was calm. I quietly seethed. I wouldn’t talk. He picked up a cinder block and threw it towards me. It smashed just far enough from my head that nothing hit me, but I could feel the wind. I was shocked. I was absolutely mortified. I’d been scared of him before, but never like that. He always said he wouldn’t beat me. I didn’t believe him. He cried. He asked me to forgive him. I told him not to touch me.
He never understood the word “No.” It was a foreign concept. He picked me up and hauled me over his shoulder and carried me to his house. He got in bed, I followed. He tried to touch me and I told him that if he didn’t get his fingers off of me, I would break them. I left as soon as he fell asleep.
Part of me died that night. I learned to build a concrete wall around my heart. I learned to wall off my emotions. I learned how to stop feeling, almost completely. I learned to never let my guard down.
The best decision I have made in my life was leaving him. He would have hurt me. He drinks very, very regularly. He was arrested for several drug related charges. When I think of my life then, I surround all of these memories in a black fog. I was so young. I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t know that life could get better. Sometimes I wonder what possessed him to go after a newly 15 year old girl with severe anxiety, depression, and self-hatred issues; and then I realize. I was the only girl who paid attention to him regularly. This 19 year old boy saw in me what he saw in himself and somehow convinced himself that what he was doing was okay, and I will never forgive him for that.
He should have known. I was too young.
Mental abuse is still abuse. Get help.
The National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or http://www.thehotline.org/
