…but he’s never hit me: pt 1

Trigger warnings: very brief and vague mention of suicide, depression, rape and sexual assault.

At 16 years old I made a choice that would change my life.

I was never a rebellious kid, I was shy, quiet, and you’d always find me hidden in the back of the room. I had friends, but I was the kid who wasn’t popular, unless you needed someone to keep a secret for you, a shoulder to lean on.

Growing up from childhood trauma gave me some self esteem issues that lasted throughout my school years and even now I struggle, just not nearly as much. I’m happy to say that I’ve learned a lot of mental health “tools” and emotional intelligence.

Now back to when I was 16 with no way of knowing who I was, what my feelings were and that my trauma would mold me into a people pleasing wreck with some crazy attachment issues.

I did something I had never done. I snuck out. I didn’t sneak out of my own home, I snuck out of my grandparents home. Now I had no intentions of doing this. I simply loved staying up at their house because I love them and staying in their downstairs was like a vacation. I had the whole bottom half of the house to myself, a sitting room where I could play my games and be my nerdy self, and a beautiful bedroom with a queen sized bed to sleep in with my own bathroom as well.

But this guy I had been chatting with told me to meet up with him. Looking back on it, I realize that the manipulation started from the beginning. He had been telling me that he wanted to be with me, that we could run away to Vegas and get married. I didn’t want to sneak out, I didn’t want to get caught, or break my family’s trust. But that’s exactly what ended up doing. I snuck out to hook up with a guy. A man. An adult. 7 years older than me.

The next year or so was spent in a bad depression. I lost weight, I couldn’t eat. I was a shell of a human being, my soul felt like it left my body because of the pain I was in, I thought my heart was ripped out. My parents had found out a few weeks later, because my cousin who I confided in knew what I had done was scary and not ok. She did the right thing, but after that, I was basically shut away from the world. My family couldn’t even look at me without shame or disgust. I wasn’t allowed to close my bedroom door, even to change. I couldn’t be out of sight for more than a few minutes without getting in trouble. I was constantly reminded how horrible of a child I was, how no one would ever trust me, and that I was a compulsive liar. I know these things aren’t true, but those things really hurt me for a long time. I hated myself. I never liked myself before, but I definitely didn’t after this. And yet teenage me panicked thinking about how I ruined my chance at being with my true love.

Years went by, I had a couple of boyfriends, and one best friend that asked me out and turned out to be gay, we lost contact for some time but were able to reconnect before he took his own life… I still, to this day think about him constantly. he was the one who brought me out of my dark place, and showed me how to be happy, showed me friendship, love, compassion and also grief. He’s the one who convinced my parents that I could go out, because he’d take care of me. And he did.

After I heard the news of his passing while I was at work, I went into another weird spiral, and yet again I found myself searching for love in all the wrong places. I started looking for that loving care in men that were anything but. I was taken advantage of, more than once. I was so emotionally detached that I feel as if I was only a spectator watching my life and not able to tell myself that I needed to watch out for red flags and scum bags.

From rape, to sexual assault, to being kicked out of a living arrangement with my side job (that’s a whole other story) to being stalked at my new apartment and the guy barged in and wouldn’t leave, he was an ex navy seal.

Everything that happened all boiled down to the fact that I was too afraid to use my voice, to listen to my intuition. Those “butterflies” you feel in your gut? That’s a warning sign, not a welcome mat. Yet I grew up believing that butterflies mean you liked someone, so I thought that was true.

Through all of this, I found myself on Facebook, and guess who pops up in my “people you may know”? The guy I snuck out to be with that night. I felt full of myself that day and I sent a friend request.

That request never got accepted (10 years and 2 kids later and it still hasn’t), but I received a message soon after.

To be continued…