When i was younger, i was that strong independent girl, i never needed anyone, i was hard headed, stubborn and the LAST girl that anyone ever expected to stay in an abusive relationship. I never had trouble meeting guys, they always seemed to like me. But my freshman year in highschool one guy caught my eye. He went to a different school but we had mutual friends that we knew eachother through.. we started dating and everything was great. We got along great, he took me out on dates all the time and he just seemed so sweet. We dated for a few months before we had sex but once we did, everything slowly started changing. He started to be more protective over me and looking back at it now, the way he did it was very smooth. He would wait until one of my friends did something slightly wrong then freak out and tell me i couldnt hang out with them anymore. Why i listened? Im not sure, he was very convincing and he was my first love, i guess i just didnt want to lose him. he continued this until one day i realized that i had no friends left. Instead of leaving him, i began to DEPEND on him..because he was afterall, all i had. He told me i couldnt talk to guys, so i didnt. We dated for 3 years and he was my world. When he started hitting me it wasnt too serious, never in the face..it was usually just pushing or throwing but as he started to get more comfortable it got worse. He would do really weird things, like make me stand with my knees bent and arms out for hours..he told me if i didnt do it he would shave off my eyebrows, or my head. After dating him for about a year and a half, he decided that i was HIS property and he could do what he wanted to me. By this time, i had no friends, guys wouldnt even look at me and the only time i talked was when i was in the privacy of mine or his house....but still he always found reasons to hit me. It got to the point where i would have to wear long sleeve shirts in the summer because i was covered in bruises. I would have bruised ribs, thighs and arms. Some nights, i wasnt even sure if i was going to make it home because he would park in parking lots and just hit me and scream at me. I thought it couldnt get any worse, but then it did...the last year we talked, he was so comfortable with hitting me, that he would just hit me in the face and the worst part is, he didnt feel sorry about it. I was miserable but i felt trapped. i loved him so much, i still do. He was like my poison, he told me that i would never find someone better than him and that no one would want me because i simply wasnt good enough...and as stupid as it sounds, i believed him. When someone tells you EVERYDAY for years that youre not good enough, you actually start to believe it. I've been broken up with him and single for about a year now but its still hard. I hate him for SOOO many reasons, i hate that i let him hit me, i hate that i let him control me, i hate that he couldnt even appreciate the fact that i stood by him, i hate that im an emotional wreck now because of him, but at the same time i miss him. I miss having someone there for me and sadly to say, i still believe that im never going to find anyone else. I know he was only saying it to keep me hooked on him, but it worked. i don't want this to sound like i want to get back with him because its the last thing i want. Never again do i want to be hit, or have a knife at my throat, or have my things broken, or my steering wheel jerked on the highway...i absolutely dont want that but im so scared that no one else is going to ever love me i dont want to believe all the things he put in my head but when a year passes and i still havent met anyone i just start to wonder and it sucks so bad. i cry myself to sleep all the time because i just wish i never met him, never dated him. i was so happy before i met him and now im just a horrible mess..