Calla
Looking people in the eyes was always very difficult for me. Even as a young child, people noticed this and mocked me, particularly in school. Later in life I learned that the inability to keep eye contact is a sign of low self esteem.
Verbal and emotional abuse was the norm in my home. Though I was consistently shamed during discipline by my father, I believed it was normal, even appropriate, and never felt any resentment toward him as a child. I was in my twenties before I finally understood what my father had been implying my whole life: “Sometimes I feel like such a failure because you and your brother have been such a disappointment to me.” Growing up under that, it was no wonder my choices in men were less than stellar.
I was bullied during almost every year of schooling. It was not always the same person, but I was a very easy target. I was often at a loss for words to stand up for myself, and was often laughed at. I was a nice girl, I followed the rules, I did not dress or act funny, I was smart, I was a compassionate and loyal friend, but the “right people” always found a way to get to me.
My Perpetrator
I was 17, and I had dated a few guys here and there for a few months at a time. But the abuse really began with my first “real” boyfriend, Cory, the guy I gave my virginity to. He was a master manipulator. He had me absolutely under his thumb, and I guess I had lost my ability to think for myself by the time sexual intimacy entered our relationship. Even being in a relationship with a guy like him was somehow a culmination of all my past experiences and total lack of self esteem.
Cory was deep, romantic, intense, brooding, exciting, and adventurous. He had a history with women that I did not find out about right away; but when I did, he told me the stories about them in such a way that I felt that he was sharing pain with me and looking for forgiveness for past mistakes. What I should have realized was that he was already a sexual predator, and that this pattern had begun in the 6th grade.
I was so very naive. I managed to hold on to my virginity for 8 months of our relationship, but finally gave in when he was “just trying to see how far we could go” and discovered that I had no hymen to break. There was no barrier. At the end of our first sexual encounter, “our song” started playing on the radio, and we both took it as if it were
a sign.
Two days later, he invited his best friend to join us. That was my first experience of separating my emotions from my body. It was not the last. He found many different ways to demoralize me, to force me into acts that were perverse and unsanitary. Still, I was bound to him for reasons I cannot fully explain. There was no escape, there was simply the necessity to endure.
Soon after I started college, in my same small town, I was pushed to second place in his life. He found a new underage girl to manipulate, and I became his prostitute. He would call me to come over, pay my cab fare, and have me stay over at his apartment. I would leave before his girlfriend stopped by on her way to high school. This happened for the better part of a semester, and I often wondered if he even took a shower between us. Neither one of us had any idea about the other. During this semester, I also discovered that one of the videos he had taken of us being intimate had found its way to the electronics department of the store where he worked, and that his coworkers had seen it, and that there were copies made from it, and maybe even sold.
I was devastated in a brand new way. I had no one to tell. I couldn’t talk to my parents. I couldn’t talk to my friends. I couldn’t talk to the police. I just had to swallow it and move forward. Cory was barely even apologetic about it, and even that was not enough to make me walk away from him.
Once I discovered his new girlfriend’s existence, I went to her and told her what had been going on. I revealed that he and I had never stopped dating or sleeping together, and explained what I knew of the rotating schedule we had been on. It finally became clear to both of us that we were truly feeding his ego, that he was playing us like a couple of violins. She broke up with him, and he came to me for comfort. And of course, I was there. Where else would I be?
Things continued with me being on the down-low and him pursuing the girlfriend, even moving to where she was attending college. One would think that surely this would have put an end to our relationship. Not so. Women who are abused just don’t give up that easily. Cory would come home for two days each week, and I would skip classes to spend those days with him. My emotions had totally separated from what I was doing, and any shred of self worth I had was gone.
The Pit
Soon after I reached this point, I had brief fling with another self-destructive guy. He also needed to be sleeping with me on the sly, because he was in an abusive relationship of his own. His on again, off again girlfriend continued to abuse him, and they were parents to a toddler son. In the midst of our fling, I conceived a child.
I misinterpreted a lot of signs from karma as signs from God, and when I did share my plight with my hall coordinator and resident assistants in my dorm, they encouraged me to have an abortion. I had no personal connection to the father of the child, I was in my sophomore year of college, and this was going to “ruin my life.” I took their advice before I had a chance to really consider what was happening. Karma lined up again, and I was on vacation with a relative who, out of nowhere, told me that “if I ever got into trouble” she would help me out. So my abortion was free.
I need to be gentle with myself and realize that I was really not in a position to fully understand what I was doing, having been emotionally and sexually abused and not being very morally coherent. I woke up during the final suction process of the abortion, and that set off the beginning of my post traumatic stress disorder. That was the very lowest point in my 19 years of life. It was also the end of me being willing to feel any emotions.
I willed myself into total numbness, and remained there for the next several years. I began attending a different college in another town, dating a good Christian guy, graduated from college… yet still not feeling or thinking about much of anything. I was fortunate to not have turned to alcohol, drugs, or worse while I was in this fragile place.
But eventually I began to crack. My body started to show signs of stress; first digestive issues, then unexplained hives. I was not dealing with my emotions, and it was literally starting to chip away at my body.
The Rest of the Story
At this point, I had met my future husband on the internet in a Christian young adult chatroom. He lived several states away from me, and attended the same church as my college roommate. We talked online, we talked on the phone, and my former roommate met him. I was invited to stay with a friend who lived near him, and made plans to bring our blossoming relationship into “real life.” We spent a weekend getting to know each other in person, and soon after, I relocated. The first three months of our relationship were spent with me in a post abortion support group. He listened while I raged, and wept, and my soul broke into a million little pieces. He grieved the loss of my child with me, he held my hand and walked through the pain and sorrow with me. He is my beloved. He saved me. God saved me. I am restored.
Thank you for listening to my story. I have battle scars. I even still have some wounds that need to heal. But my story is part of what makes me who I am, and I am not ashamed.
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