Unnoticeably Broken
by melissa remley
(minnesota)
I was 14 years old and started dating this guy. I never would have thought that I would ever be in a relationship like I was in. It all started out great we had a lot of laughs, fun, and I considered him my best friend. I got pregnant a month into our relationship and that is when everything went downhill. He started lying to me, cheating on me and, verbally abusing me. I was 15 years old, just a baby myself, when I gave birth to my beautiful baby boy.
About a year into my relationship things had gotten a lot worse. He became very controlling, told me who I could and could not communicate and be friends with. I had to ask him if I could go do anything and we didn't even live together. Then on July 5, 2009 he hit me for the first time. I didn't know what to do so I told one of my friends, knowing my mom over heard it. We called the police and got a restraining order put on. I ended up breaking the no contact order and for a while things seemed completely different. A few months later things went right back to the way they were before. We fought constantly whether our son was there or not. He called me every horrible name in the book, he broke myself esteem, and made me hate myself, but I just couldn't leave him. I lost almost all of my friends, lost people in my family because I pushed them away and I lost myself. Then the summer of 2011 came around, things had gotten somewhat better because I didn't let him push me around as much. One night we were fighting and he grabbed my son out of my arms. When I went to grab him back to leave, he grabbed me and choked me with one hand while holding our child in his other hand. A few days later he did it again but this time our son was not around. He grabbed me, threw me into a door to the point where I almost
broke through it, and he choked me. One of his friends was there and just stood and watched.
A few months later I ended things with him completely. I just couldn't take any more of the abuse and I was completely worn out, I knew it was time to end things because I would start having an anxiety attack just by seeing his name come up on my phone. It was not a healthy situation for me but especially for my son, who is now terrified of his dad and wants nothing to do with him. I am now 19 years old, and my son is now 4. It has been about 1 year and a half since I ended things with my son's dad. I am now in a new relationship with an amazing guy. Nobody noticed how broken I was and how lost I was when I was going through my past relationship. I went through 4 years of hell and no one noticed what was going on. I now have major depression which I try to cover. I also have major anxiety issues which I also try to cover. I don’t want the sympathy from people when they hear my story. I want them to take something from it and watch for signs of domestic violence. I am a much stronger person today then I was a year and a half ago because of what I went through. I try not to let it affect me and I try to forget that it ever happened. I feel like I was and still am a weak person because I let that happen to me and didn’t try to end it sooner. I let him tear me apart, hurt me to the point that I don’t think that pain will ever go away, and I let him break me down completely to a point that I didn’t and still don’t know how to recover from it. My son is what keeps me going every day and he is what is making me go for my dreams so then I can make a good life for us.