Hiding behind the truth.

by CTLC
(Guam)

This is my first blog post ever. I was 17 when I actually got into a relationship. It was my first and like all young women at that age I thought it was my only true love. Not true! so I fell madly and deeply in love with someone that I thought would never hurt me but now to this day he still hurts me emotionally and physically. Although I have moved on in life without him, I feel like I'm still living a life with him. My body tells me to move forward but my mind keeps me in the past. I was abused, ridiculed, and forced to have sex with this man who has left a huge scar in my life. I feel as though I can not be sane with myself because he still haunts me everyday.

My story goes like this. From the first hit which I thought was an accident at the time, became the first of many more. He like most men said "I'm sorry. It was an accident. It won't happen again." Well it did happen again. For the next 2 years I was punched in the face because I didn't want to have sex with him. I was pinched in my inner thigh because of "my mouth". I was always called/texted while at work trying to work but he was always concerned. At such a young age I didn't know I was being abused and without consent being raped by my boyfriend "because I was his". The person who I thought loved me because of me and who I was. But NO he didn't love me because of me. He loved the fact that he could "own" me by being controlling and watching my every move.

Finally once I built up the strength in my body to stop him from choking me, I called it QUITS and I told him he had to leave and I never wanted to see his face again (Thank God I still haven't). Well just last year I received an email from him on my birthday. The day out of the year that is my day and he chooses to ruin it by emailing me to be "friends". I was angry and so pissed off that I wanted to go through the computer and shake him and hit him. Instead I calmed myself and emailed him back. Telling him that, "a friend is not someone who hurts another. A friend is someone reliable, trusting, and who can lend a shoulder to lean on but you want to be my friend? A person that hit me for nothing, who made me pick him over my family, who told me to pull down my pants when he was sexually hungry. A person who told me that if you leave me, I will kill myself and attempts to do it in front of me more than 10 times. A person who dragged me by my hair because "I" always start the arguments. So you, a person that has done all of this and has never once apologized for your actions wants to be my friend? Well, I'm not sorry that I don't want to be your friend and I'm not sorry about the things you put me through because it has made me a stronger person and WOMAN!! So in return I thank you because now I know where my purpose in life is to be, and that's with keeping men like you away from women and for me to help women all over."

I hid behind the fact that I was abused and didn't come to terms with it until months after that relationship ended. It took my mother saying it to my face that I was abused in order for me to accept it. I am now 22 years old and that man to this day leaves me with nightmares and memories of all the abuse. I can't remember one good thing about him, or us. I don't wish to, but I wish that I didn't hide behind the truth because if I had spoken up earlier I would have saved a year and a half of my life to be free. So women Speak up and Speak out. Don't hide and don't cut yourself short in life because if it's anything that I have learned is that life has many opportunities for you to advance and become stronger - it's just how you act on it. Peace and love is all this world needs.