Teenage Domestic Violence... *TRIGGER WARNING*

This really hits me close to home… To start off, watch this video. It’s from What Would You Do, and it’s about teen violence. NOTE: If you are easily moved, or upset by topics like this, don't read any further. It's going to go very in-depth and detailed... and may very well cause flashbacks or other reactions from people who have been abused... 

I’ve been in this situation. And it’s hard because sometimes even teenagers don’t think it’s wrong. Sometimes no one will stand up and help.

I want to tell you about my teenage years. I didn’t know any better about what was expected in a relationship, and how things were supposed to work. Just because I had seen my parents and their relationship, doesn’t mean that things were always supposed to be like that… and I didn’t know any better.

When I was 15, I began dating the brother of a good friend of mine, a girl who played Varsity Basketball with me. For a long while, things were fine. And then they changed, slowly, gradually… my boyfriend began to call me horrible names… he called me a bitch, and a slut, because my ex, who I was good friends with, would call to make sure that I was ok and see how our friends were doing, since he had moved away. My boyfriend began to control every aspect of my life, from the way I dressed, to the way I ate. He wanted me to eat less so that I would fit in a smaller size, and I had never been less than a size 12 since I had hit puberty and became 5’5”. I wasn’t overweight by any means, but I wasn’t rail thin either, and he expected me to look like the girls on the magazines and on the porn websites… tiny, thin… and ready to put out whenever he wanted.

By the time I was age 16, he had forced my hand down his pants a few times... However, he seemed to listen when I told him no and that I didn’t want to do that… I had been trying to wait until I was ready to lose my virginity. The only person I had felt comfortable with in that regard was my ex, the one who had moved away. My boyfriend was not happy about that, he wanted me to do those things with him, things that I had barely done with my ex. (My ex and I had just begun, before he moved, exploring each other with hands and eyes. And we hadn’t planned to go farther than that.) It made him angry, and so, the verbal abuse doubled. I was told I was an idiot, that I was a stupid female. I believed him. My grades dropped from As to Bs… and for me, that was a BIG drop. I had been a straight A student since elementary school. Watching my grades drop was like confirming what he said. I listened. I should have left, but I didn’t. I should have left when the first slap came that year… I should have left when it escalated past slapping into hair pulling, pinching, and throwing me around. I didn’t.

When I was 17, the end of my Junior year, he raped me. At the time, I didn’t know that it was rape when you said no in a relationship. I thought that once you were with someone, it was no longer rape, no matter how much you said no. My parents had never taught me about how relationships worked or the ‘rules’. I thought that sex came with the relationship whether you wanted it or not. He did it many times over the next couple of months… I guess he had gotten tired of waiting for me to say yes. He didn’t use protection… and I ended up pregnant.

I panicked. I had no idea what to do… I didn’t know my options. When I walked out of the bathroom with my 3^rd pregnancy test in 2 days, with bright pink lines, he got quiet and left the room. When he came back, he never spoke. He grabbed me by the hair and threw me to the ground, and began to kick me and scream in my face. In the time frame he had been out of the room, he had locked all of the doors to the building we were in, a store his dad owned, and put up closed signs. He kicked me for about 30 minutes, in my stomach, in my arms… and by the next hour and a half, I was bleeding from my vagina. I had a miscarriage. And I was ashamed to say I was relieved… I was never more glad to be bleeding in my life. I took myself to the ER, and gave a false name. I was treated for broken ribs and uterine damage, and my parents were called. I lied, and told them I was mugged… My doctor was understanding enough to not inform them of the miscarriage. And now, in hindsight, I know that not only was I wrong to ask the doctor to not tell them… but the doctor was wrong for listening. They never knew I had been pregnant, they just knew I was hurt. I recovered, and my boyfriend brought flowers and stuffed animals, and cards… he acted like a new person. I thought it would change.

I was wrong.

It NEVER changes. Ever.

It got worse. He began to use condoms whenever he had sex with me. By that point, like a child, I would just let my mind go to a different place. I would go away in my head. He had told me that he would shoot my family if I told them or left him, and I had seen his gun. I stayed in fear for their lives. I found out after the first time that he used a condom, that I was allergic to them. He didn’t care, so I had a rash constantly. I went and got seen at the doctor, and told my mother that I was sexually active. I didn’t tell her that I didn’t want to be, but she suspected. A mother knows her child. She asked me repeatedly if I was ok, if I was doing things because I wanted to… I lied again. I told her yes, I was fine. The doctor’s office told me I was STD free, thank God, and gave me a prescription for birth control pills. With those pills, my boyfriend became more possessive. He thought that me being on the pill would make me sleep around on him, although I had never given him reason to think that. He began to try and have sex with me daily, wherever he could… He’d drive into the woods and do it there, he’d drag me from the car to do it on the hood of the car, on the ground, wherever… A few times, he even had the balls to do it at my mom and dad’s house, while watching TV in my room. I felt ashamed, dirty, and used. I didn’t WANT this, but when I said anything, he accused me of being a whore and cheating on him.

By my Senior year, it was so bad that I had attempted suicide about 3 times. The final time would have succeeded, if my mother had not broken down the bathroom door and found me… I was in the tub, with all of my father’s painkillers in my system and my wrists slit from the hands to the mid-arm. She had seen the water spill over the tub and didn’t hesitate to break in. She saved my life. She called 911 before she got that door open, and she wrapped my wounds in towels and started forcing milk down my throat and then forced my body to puke. If she hadn’t done what she did, I would have died. Instead, they took me to the hospital, and I was bandaged and had my stomach pumped. The hospital called a pastor for a religious intervention, since the town I lived in was big on the bible belt, and I was given the lecture about how suicide was a sin and that I would go to hell if I died by killing myself.

I can assure you, that didn’t help.

 

I was in such a deep depression, that I didn’t care about graduating, or prom, or any of the things that I should care about. My boyfriend got his wish, I became a size 7 in a matter of months. I no longer ate my meals like I should. I had bruises hidden with layers of makeup and various clothes. I wore turtle necks, long sleeve shirts, blue jeans… in the middle of spring and summer. I wouldn’t wear bathing suits anymore, I wore shorts and t-shirts to my grandmother’s pool, because wearing a one piece was too revealing to him and I didn’t want to get the punishment for it. He called me fat constantly, and at that point, my mother was worried about my health because I was so small, so fast. My hair was falling out, and my teeth were loose from the lack of proper nutrition.

After I graduated, I wasn’t even motivated to go to school or the military like I had planned. I got a shitty job as a waitress, and I stayed at home all the time or I went with him out or helped him at his work.

All this time, people had witnessed him verbally abuse me, berate me, and even hit me a few times. NO ONE stood up and said, ‘Hey, this is WRONG!’.

When we broke up because he was tired of my depression, I was 19, about 6 months from 20. I had scars all over my body. My teeth were in bad shape, and my hair was a short, pixie-cut mess. I had cut it about a year before, to keep him from pulling me by the hair. It worked, but it got me all kinds of other comments, such as calling me a lesbian and a bull d*ke. I was broken and I could barely function from panic attacks and self-loathing. I hated myself. I felt used.

When my ex, the one who had moved, found out about it YEARS later, when I was 22… he flipped. He wanted to kill the guy. But he helped me get over it, to finally move on. And he’s been with me ever since. We have a beautiful child, and we’re expecting another one any day now. But I still get flashbacks and reminders of what happened. I still have times where I look back and feel like I’m used, and worthless. He helps get me past that. And I’ve grown to get MYSELF past it… because I want my daughters to know better. I want them to know that it’s NOT right. That they should never allow anyone to treat them like that, and that they should tell someone or stop it if they see someone being abused. If ONE person had stepped in, had told me that he shouldn’t touch me like that when they had seen it… maybe it would have helped me to leave.

One person can make the difference.

And if you are in a verbally, emotionally, physically, or sexually abusive relationship, PLEASE… do NOT stay. LEAVE and get help, there are places out there that will help you! There are places out there that will give you shelter, or help keep you protected, or help with telling your loved ones if you need that. You have NOTHING to be ashamed of, it is NOT your fault, and you should never feel like you are the cause of your abuse! Get help!

I know this isn’t the lighthearted blog I usually do, but I really had to share this. I know that this still happens regularly, in public and behind closed doors. We live in a society today where abuse is sometimes glorified in song or on TV, and that is wrong. And I think it’s time that I share this, to help spread the word. This part of my life is why I am pro-choice… because if I had stayed pregnant, I would have GLADLY had an abortion to not have that guy’s baby in me. To not be linked to that guy for the rest of my life. This situation DOES happen, and it’s vastly under-reported. I never reported him for what he did to me, and while I should have… hindsight is 20/20. There are a lot of things I should have done. And this happens to men too. Women can be the abusers. And men are LESS likely to report it, because they feel emasculated or weak to admit that they have been abused.

Please. If you know of anyone in a situation like this… step up and help in any way you can. Sometimes that one person offering help can make all the difference.