this entry is about emotional/verbal/sexual abuse, assault, and mistreatment. do not read this if this triggers you or if you are unsafe. you have been warned.
i don't know why i'm writing this. again, i find myself before the white screen of the computer, wondering what to say to fill this void. this is so hard to talk about, but i need to get it out. therapy last night was extremely painful and hard. in the end, however, i think it was beneficial. i guess i'd blocked out a lot more than i originally thought in regards to the abuse/mistreatment i've gone through. i blocked it out because of the pain it caused me to remember, to deal with it. somehow, i let my gaurd down in therapy. it all started coming back to me. more and more, bits and pieces i'd forgotten. i'm writing this... maybe it will be a cleansing type thing. a mental purge, perhaps. here goes nothing...
andrew. brown hair, brown eyes, cute smile. he was my first boyfriend. our relationship started four days aftre my twelfth birthday. we had been friends since the beginning of school in september, though. he was in my gym class. he was sweet and funny, but known to many as a "bad boy," a rebel, a trouble-maker. but to me he was none of these. i was young, nieve, and twelve, so i jumped at the opportunity to join the list of sixth grade girls with boyfriends. andrew was good to me. he treated me like a princess. i felt special, loved, and wanted. we went on real dates often. to the movies, to the ice-skating rink, out to dinner, hanging out at his house, walking around the playground at the elementary school just talking as we lounged on the swingset. i didn't know what i was doing but i liked the way he treated me. it made me so happy and giddy. our relationship was nothing but positive. we dated for almost nine months. he was there through good times and bad. he helped me cope through the horror my grandmother's death. and then he broke up with me in early november. there was no fight. no reason. it was just over. just like that. later on, i found out that he dumped me because we were "going far enough" physically. this confused me because he had never pressured me or expressed interest in doing so. i was twelve, though, and definitely not ready to do anything sexual with someone other than kissing, hugging, and holding hands. but i guess it just didn't satisfy andrew. aside from that, i only have good memories of our relationship. i am including this to note the progression from good relationships to bad.
a couple months after my break up with andrew, a friend introduced me to jahmal. he was quiet and soft-spoken, but gentle and kind. he was liked by many and was very friendly and outgoing. deep inside, though, he was extremely troubled. he was manic-depressive, and suicidal. i didn't know how to deal with it, seeing as i, myself, had become suicidal, too, due to a variety of things i was dealing with. eventually, we became a "couple" and had a few months of notes, phone calls, and spending time together after school. the severity of his mental illness scared me, and i talked to the school guidance counselor and sought help for him. he appreciated it, but our relationship fizzeled out after that. it wasn't too upsetting since we weren't close to begin with. but again, i found myself asking why every relationship ended and i felt more and more discarded.
next comes the hard part: johnny. it was october of eighth grade, i was thirteen. johnny was loud, outgoing, and very popular. he practically had his own entourage. he was in my science class and started passing notes to me on a just-friends basis. on day he asked me to be his girlfriend. on the rebound from several relationships gone wrong, i said yes. this lasted exactly one day. i was confused. at lunch the next day he asked me out again. my answer? yes. don't ask me why. i don't know. maybe because i wanted to be liked and special and wanted. my dad was emotionally absent at this time due to his profound grief over his mothers/my grandmothers death. i craved some sort of nurturing special relationship that i felt was lacking from my father. i don't even know if that makes sense. so i took him back. immediatel;y, i felt that he had a sort of control over me. i was inferior (a.k.a. not as popular and therefore not equal.) he made the rules and chose when and how he wanted to discard me like a piece of trash and then take me back at his discretion. everytime i said yes. i didn't feel strong enough to do otherwise. i was scared. our constant break-ups left me feeling worthless and ashamed. i didn't understand why he kept doing this. i felt like i mattered to no one; like a slut no one wanted but was good if they had none other. our tumultuous relationship only got worse. emotional/verbal abuse started and continued strong. i started feeling very uncomfotable around him. he made me kiss him in class one day despite my refusal, then again every time we were out with my friends. he made a show out of it. i felt embarrassed and used. he came to our house several times for band practice with my brothers. they would play their guitars and drums in the basement. i was upstairs in the rocking chair reading when johnny came up to get a drink. he saw me, came over, pulled me out of the rocking chair, sat down, pulled me close, and started kissing me. each time was longer than the last. fear and anxiety surged through me. the fact that we were alone in a room while everyone else was far away terrified me. i felt pressured to go farther. i felt like no one could save me if things got out of hand. it stopped after that and he went back to playing drums. a couple days later he broke up with me again. he told everyone that i came onto him. he humiliated me and read the notes i'd written to him aloud to our science class, watching and grinning as my face turned a deep shade of red. he called me fat and ugly. his friends started confronting me online and in person and ridiculing me for dating him. "you're fat, no one like you, you ugly bitch." "no one will every want you." and i believed them. i believed them all. after our last and final break up in may - eight months of hell - he lost interest. thank god. after that, everything fell apart. i blamed myself for ever saying yes each time. i felt so worthless, used, and degraded. that's when i started cutting, burning, and starving myself. self-hatred flooded my self-image. worthless. fat. ugly. whore. and the thoughts never left me. never.
time passed between my next relationship evolved. i was scared and timid, i didn't want to be in another relationship. but again, it happened. again, i said yes. again, it was my fault. ryan came into my life shortly after ninth grade started, right before homecoming. we got along well, he was mutual friends with mine, and we went to the dance together and dated for a month or so after. then it ended. another chance at a seemingly normal relationship gone. why did everyone leave me? why did this keep happening? was it me? did i do something wrong? was i so worthless that no one wanted me? my anorexia heightened during this time. i basically stopped eating, exercised like a maniac, and lost fifty pounds in four months. i lose myself in depression and cutting. i lost myself. lost. lost. lost.
two more seemingly pointless relationships. i kept jumping into relationship after relationship. whore. i felt the need for acceptance, love, the feeling of being special and pretty and wanted. along comes jeff. i was a freshman and jeff was a senior. we had gym together as well as the same lunch period. he was anorexic, as was i, and we got to know each other because we were the only people not eating lunch in our circle of friends. he was previously involved with alex, a close friend of mine. after they broke up, he moved on to me. making his way around the circle. i felt like i was betraying my friend, but alex said it was okay. so begins the relationship. we basically only hung out at school because i was fifteen and he was eighteen and my parents would have kiilled me. summer started and we hung out sometimes. one day he invited me and kelly to get coffee. we went and while we ordered kelly said she was going to "leave us alone to have some fun." jeff really went on that idea. he kissed me and i kissed back. anxiety rose in my chest. i thought of all the times i felt i had been used, abused, violated, pressured. he told me to open my mouth wider - instructing me on the "right" way to kiss him. his hands began to wander; moving from my back to my breasts, to my stomach. down farther. something inside me broke, i was terrified, and i pushed him off me, got out of the car, and told him, tears in my eyes, that i "couldn't do this anymore." we never spoke again after that. when i went back inside to kelly's, she jumped up and down and asked "did you make out? did you make out?" excitement in her voice. i nodded a weak yes but kept it to myself how pressured i felt to be intimate with him after only knowing him a short while. again, i felt dirty and violated. i felt like guys only talked to me and dated me because they thought they could get some, thought i would just willingly fuck them or satisfy their sexual fantasies. i blamed myself because i kissed him back. my fault, of course. worthless, of course. dirty, of course. whore, of course. fat, ugly, stupid, of course. of course. another one gone wrong. another scar to my heart. another bruise that never fades.
june. tenth grade was over. michael, crystal and i ran away. we went to josh's house, a friend of michaels. they went off together, leaving me alone with josh. i was sixteen and he was twenty. and then it happened. he told me to get in his bed. no, please no. get in my bed. no, no, no. pressured, vulnerable, terrified, shaking. i sat on the edge of his bed, tears streaming down my face. he told me to lie down. loosen up, loosen up. it's okay, i won't hurt you. fear, so much fear. loosen up, loosen up. i felt paralyzed, trapped, uinable to move even though my mind screamed to leave the room immediatley. but i was frozen. absolutely frozen and scared. loosen up, loosen up. stop. stop. stop. he began to touch me. his fingers swept across my skin. neck, breasts, stomach, thighs. over, over, over. touching, feeling, robbing me of innocence. lost the strength to move. i was terrified he would rape me. i felt it coming. eventually i pushed him off of me, stumbled to the bathroom, broke apart a shaving razor and cut myself until the bathroom floor was stained crimson. the scars from that night are still there. a reminder of that night. punishment. my fault, of course. i got in his bed. never mind the fact that i was scared, pressured, frozen, afraid, vulnerable. never mind. of course, my fault. of course. when i hear the words "loosen up" i cringe. when someone says the name josh i start shaking. i feel his hands crawling over me. i still hear his voice. i still remember. it will never go away. it will never stop haunting me. it will always be there. always.
so why does this happen? why can't i say no? why does it feel like it's always my fault even when, sometimes, i recognize that it's not? why do people treat me like i'm nothing, a worthless girl who can be used and abused and violed and mistreated to the point of self-destruction and self-hatred? why? why? i wish i knew the answers. i wish i knew why. i wish i knew why.
and all of this has hand an impact on me physically and emotionally. i believe a large part of my anorexia is due to the abuse and mistreatment i've experienced over the years. weighed down (pardon the pun) by abuseful words, negative comments, name-calling (fat, stupid, ugly), and the overwhelming feeling of worthlessness and pressure to do things i did not want to do or was not ready or comfortable about doing all fueled the fire that brought my eating disorder to life. of course, there is the whole control factor that plays in to my eating disorder, which i believe is the core reason, but this ties into it, too. also, in a way, self-starvation to the point of grotesque emaciation was desirable to rid my body of womanly qualities (breasts, hips, ass) so as to ward off things of a sexual nature to avoid the past. cutting/self-injury began shortly after the relationship with johnny, and continued long after and up until now. i believe it had an impact on my addiction to hurting myself. however, i believe the horrid depression, anxiety, eating disorder, poor self-esteem, family and friend problems, and a need to release things were also contributors to my cutting. even more so than the abuse/bad relationships. i released my pain in blood. i also cut to punish myself for these things, to enforce the fact that i was worthless and didn't deserve not to cut myself. sometimes, when the pain became too much or the memories too haunting, i would dissociated and become numb to it all. to bring myself back to reality, to "feel alive," i would cut myself. because i felt numb and out of it, i generally cut very badly.
this is long winded and sometimes repetitive, but i needed desperately to get it out. maybe it will help heal some of these wounds. i don't know. the thoughts are overwhelming. the pain a roaring hinderance to sleep and functioning. the memories a haunting and unrelenting presence that never leaves. never leaves. and so i'm back at square one: hating myself, remembering it all, haunted by the pain and memories, wondering why, and never finding any answers. and still, it hurts so bad.
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