Andrea

Moderator’s note: A young family member of mine went through something very similar to this. Experts tell me the Internet, cell phones, and smart devices have ratcheted up dating violence, abuse, and bullying among middle and high school kids to a whole new, unimaginable level. — Maggie

“Unmasked”

Yes, I came from a broken home. My mother realized it and fought to mend it for her three children–and she succeeded. Yes, I experienced domestic violence throughout my childhood; sometimes brutal attacks, sometimes no more than a smack here or there. Does that mean I asked for the emotional and physical abuse I’d experience later on?

When I was 14 I met a girl who told me about a boy she knew. The boy and I talked online through messengers, email, and other means. I was insecure and desperate for love I didn’t experience at home, so we developed a long distance relationship.

After a year I knew that this boy was not a boy–his pictures were different every time, his voice on the phone was not male, I called my friend’s number which was “routed” to get to him (to avoid long distance, obviously) –I didn’t care. I knew it was that girl who initially introduced me to “him.”

Then I entered high school and it got worse. I “broke up” with the boy to date the girl. She did to others what she did to me (while we were dating), made it a point to leave little clues around so I’d know. She took sex on her terms when she wanted it, which I gave her because I so badly wanted to have a relationship. She withheld all affection when she didn’t care enough to make an effort. It lasted almost two years.

Finally I brought it up. She would follow me around school, doing things just to hurt me, make me angry and sad. When I went to school officials (the security lady, my choir teacher, my counselor) they listened, understood. Then she went to them claiming I was the one doing the harassing. Even her friends didn’t take her side after that.

I almost dropped out of high school.

Eventually she left. I took my last year of school to fix myself, to understand it, to put it behind me.

She’s still doing this, using up wounded, fragile people because it fulfills something lost inside herself. She did it to one of my best friends (who is a gay male) and one of my friends who knew her then.

She kept trying to continue the cycle–creating false identities and trying to contact me, calling me to deliver verbal and emotional abuse–until my good friend (who is also one of her victims) told her that we had all of the fake IDs she’d created and all of the abuse she’d dealt out saved and would sue her for everything we could. I haven’t heard from her since that.

I grew up being hit and thrown and bruised. I entered my teenage years being bruised emotionally and sexually because I thought it was the only kind of love I could ever experience.

Now I am about to move in with the man I will marry–a man who is kind, patient, loyal and generous, who loves me for exactly what I am–and I am not a victim. I will never be a victim of anyone ever again. I broke the cycle of my father and my father’s father and my mother. It ends with me.

And I am stronger for it.

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Andrea blogs at The Revenant Cupcake.

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43 Comments | March 2, 2010 | Filed Under domestic violence, sexual abuse, survivor story