[fruitbat22]

**This is a long post, but I needed to write it down.**

**Trigger Warning**

When I was in the 7th grade I had a crush on a boy. I'm going to abbreviate his name to C. The next year (after dropping nearly 40 pounds) I finally got the guts to ask him out. He said no. I was disheartened.

A few months later he changed his mind and asked me to be his girlfriend. I was elated.

I had plans to enter a technical high school, but after he dumped me right before the summer, I chose to go to the traditional public city high school. I was crushed, and hurt so I figured never seeing him again (he was going to the tech school) would help me get past it.

Just before school ended, he asked me out again. I accepted, gleefully. Imagining a great summer.

Every day from June until September I would walk a couple miles to my friend J's house. There, all the kids in that neighborhood would gather and we would all do something fun, such as play video games, football, manhunt etc.

C rarely showed up if he knew I was there. If I arrived and he was there first, he would suddenly have to go. I may have seen him only a few times that summer.

Until one day he called me and asked me to walk to his house. He said he would meet me about 3/4 of the way there. I jogged nearly 2 miles and met him by some old buildings, just before the street he lived on.

He hugged me then asked "you aren't my girlfriend right?" Befuddled, I replied "well we are dating..." He said "Oh well I'm seeing someone else, I met her at a pool party." He broke up with me and left me near the old buildings, frozen in shock. My heart shattered in two. I started walking towards J's house and broke down crying there.

High school started in the fall but I had to start late when my nose was broken by C. I was invited along with the neighborhood kids to play tackle football in his yard and while I was running to take the ball from him he turned his head and suddenly an elbow went right into my nose and the blood came gushing. He refused to let me in his house to clean up, until I started screaming. He let me in to clean my face. My friends gave me a new shirt (mine was soaked in blood) and as I left to go home (my mom was picking me up, unaware of the incident) the only thing he said to me was "You're not gonna tell her it was me, right?".

So I lied to my mom and said I fell on a rock. I kept this lie for almost 4 years.

High school started and I was pretty miserable. Most of my friends were in the Tech school and Public High was not for me. I felt like I was drowning in a sea of students.

Sometime in October, C wanted to be "friends with benefits" and only payed me any attention when trying to solicit something sexual from me. And I happily obliged, craving any moment I could spend with him.

By the end of December, he locked me out of his house in a snow storm, and nearly gave me hypothermia (he only let me back in after I stopped being able to feel my feet and my lips were blue. I had no ride home until hours later). He laughed at me the entire time. However, I never got angry.

Sometime in the winter I started developing feelings for another boy in the neighborhood, D. I would start to see him more often and I really wanted to be with him. He was goofy but kind, and smart. I was transferring to the tech high school the next year and was excited to maybe have classes with him.

Around February C asked me to be his girlfriend again. Despite some developing feelings for D, I agreed.

But my feelings for D grew as C continued to be withdrawn. I felt like he was using me.

Come the spring, C shoved me down a driveway at a bus stop, kneed me in the stomach at a friend's house and began slapping and kicking me. I always assumed it was because I was making him mad for some reason.

Near the end of freshman year, I was head over heels for D and we wanted to be together. C had my body, but D had my heart. D was my best friend.

When I tried to leave C, he started crying and saying he was sorry for everything and he would treat me better. I argued I wanted to leave, but he persisted. I reluctantly agreed to stay with him, and I broke D's heart.

D stopped talking to me by the beginning of sophomore year, when I transferred to the tech school.

I started to feel guilty for being so close to D while being in a relationship with C. And now that D was gone, C was all I had. I admitted to being close with D. C kicked me out of his house and refused to speak to me.

I was devastated. I felt like I was losing everything. So I begged him for another chance, now realizing that I was the one in the wrong.

He agreed to not leave me. I didn't know how much worse things were going to get.

He started calling me every couple hours wanting to know where I was, who I was with and what I was doing. He told me what clothes I could and could not wear. He ordered for me at restaurants, and told me I could not go to a gym because he said "I don't want you to get too much confidence and leave me".

Mid-fall I got acquainted with another boy, V. He had gone to the public school and had noticed me there. I remembered him from an art class in the 8th grade. We started hanging out in similar social groups. I thought he was a great friend.

C got a whiff that I might be too chummy with V and forbade me from ever seeing him. This got me angry. I started seeing V and all my other friends who knew him without C's knowledge.

C started keeping closer tabs on my and told my old friends that I was on drugs, which was why I wasn't seeing them anymore. Much of my time was spent in a dark bedroom while he played a video game. I was not allowed to leave or sleep. I was forced to sit there until he was horny. Then I was useful.

The year went by and I didn't see much of anyone. I tried to leave C three times that year, to no avail. He chased me around with lighters, didn't let me use the bathroom, and controlled every aspect of my life that he could get his hand on.

He told his mother that we were in love. That I couldn't go to college out of state and that we would be married someday. He got into the UFC craze of mixed martial arts, and would practice his moves on me. Usually only stopping when I was screaming in pain.

I broke a lamp once accidentally when I bumped into it. He was irate and I was crying hysterically in fear of his reaction. He had me on the bed and forced me to give him oral sex.

Several times he tried to force himself inside me.

He slammed me against a wall.

When he said hey *****, slut or *****, I answered.


He monitored every detail of my day when I was not with him. In school he moved all my stuff into his locker.

In the summer, I learned of V's feelings for me. But I wouldn't let myself feel anything toward him after what happened with D. But the feelings were hard to force away.

One night C was tickling me and what started off as a fun thing quickly turned to pain as I couldn't breathe and was trying to get him to stop. He had his body weight on me and refused to stop. I felt lightheaded. In a quick reaction to having no air, I pulled on his hair to try and make him stop. He immediately screamed at me and grabbed me by the hair and smashed me down onto the bed.

I was terrified.

I left that night and he called, apologizing and saying how much he loved me.

V had no idea how deep the problems ran with me and C. He confessed he was in love with me, and knew I had feelings too. I was so scared to break his heart, too. I didn't think I had the strength to leave C.

Junior year of high school came. It was a mild fall and I remember sitting outside C's house with him one day, watching the cars going by. Things were peaceful. He then turned to me after about 10 minutes of peaceful silence and said "If you ever try to leave me, I will kill you, and then kill myself".

I got the delusion that I might have to end my own life to escape him.

I realized I wanted to be with V and I was wasting my life with C. If i didn't get out soon, I never would.

I told V I was going to try and leave C but it was going to be hard and I needed his support. He said he would never leave my side.

Homecoming night I attended with C. My mom had professional photos done of us. We had been together nearly 3 years. He refused to dance and made me sit on the bleachers, while everyone had fun. He said something awful to me, that I can't even remember. I was so done with it.

The weekend past and I spent Halloween with V and his friends. It was one of the best nights of my life. I told C that my mom didn't want me going anywhere for Halloween (since he had to go to a family thing and wanted me to join).

On November 2, two days before my 17th birthday, at the end of the school day, as he was stepping onto his school bus home I told C that my mom didn't want me to talk to him anymore, and that I was grounded exponentially (a lie). He was confused but had to get on his bus.

He called me from the bus on a friend's phone, but I told him I couldn't talk. He called me again when he got home. This time I had a lot to say. I told him how I hated the way he treated me the past 3 years. He ruined so many friendships and destroyed my friendship with D. I told him I felt trapped and I wasn't going to do it anymore. He told me that I was his. And no one else could have me.

That night I had work, V came to see me. I had called him after I had hung up on C. V told me he saw C and a friend walking around the mall where my store was located and he wanted to make sure I was okay.

The next day, C cornered me in a hallway during the morning as I was walking to my first class. He put his arm around me and kissed my head and said "Baby, why are you acting like this?" He pulled me closer and I ripped away from him screaming "Get away from me!" People stared. I walked into class leaving him standing there, caught off guard by my reaction. I had never spoken up before.

The following weeks ensued where he was nonstop calling my phone, I had to turn it off. He would stalk me in school and kept trying to catch me at home or wherever else he thought I might be. He begged me to come to his house and have sex with him and to take my stuff. I was too frightened to pick up my things, so I left everything there.

When word got back to him that V and I had entered into a relationship, people started yelling "*****!" out the school bus windows at me as I walked home. He was very popular at school and told people I cheated on him. When I responded with truth about how he treated me, he denied them. Now I was known as a lying ***** in school.

No longer feeling like I was welcome at my school, I transferred back to the public high for my senior year.

I heard from him a few more times. But then nothing until after I graduated. I was living on campus. Trying to recoup from the previous year. My senior year was when I developed suicidal depression. D came back into my life temporarily, only to fade out again. It was a rough year for me and V, but we got through it.

Until I found out C went to the same college as me. And I physically bumped into him twice while trying to rush to class. I started having panic attacks worrying if and when I might run into him again. It started to preoccupy my thoughts, and my depression seemed to get worse. I felt like he was in my home, so I left campus to commute. Shortly after, I withdrew from school completely. I have not seen him in person since.

I think I am going to write a separate post about my first year with depression (my senior year) where I can go more into detail with it.

I strongly believe these events in my life highly contributed to my later development of depression. There are other factors, but this is the most major one for me.

I hope those of you who took the time to read this, can use this story in a positive way, whether you have been in an abusive relationship, or are currently in one. There is hope. You have value. And I know how incredibly hard it is.

Thanks for reading, guys.

Also, just as a little note here, I married V just over a year ago after I turned 21. He saved my life.

[kaliope]

thank you for sharing your story. i admire you for being strong enough to get out of an abusive relationship. i hope that you have gotten help for your depression and are able to help others who are in this situation.

[fruitbat22]

Originally Posted by kaliope

thank you for sharing your story. i admire you for being strong enough to get out of an abusive relationship. i hope that you have gotten help for your depression and are able to help others who are in this situation.

Thank you. Sometimes I use my story to empower others who are suffering at the hands of others. I ran for class president my freshman year of college and my main running goal was to educate my peers about the realities of dating abuse and that it can happen to anyone, at any age. I lost the election by 3 votes! (This all happened before I even knew my abusive ex went to the same college)

I try to reach out to anyone who I see struggling. It's harder to be open about the abuse I had in person, but when I am struggling to come to terms with it (I have flash backs) I tell myself the affirmation that "I am a survivor. I will not be a victim."

It felt good to type that out. Sometimes in therapy I have a hard time telling the whole story because I can get sidetracked on a particular incident etc. Maybe I will print that and bring it to my next appointment to help keep me on track and not get derailed by emotions.

Thanks again for the positive response.