I grew up dreaming of falling in love. Dreaming of having what I saw in movies and heard stories about. Dreaming of all the passion, excitement, and love that I had never actually seen.
I grew out of being a little girl, and got swallowed by the realities of the world. All the boys at school talked about the way I looked. 13 and 14-year-old boyfriends were thinking about sex when I was too nervous to kiss. 15 and 16-year-old boyfriends were expecting the things I had grown terrified of.
Everyone has always looked at me like I have something they want.
I was seventeen when I felt love for the first time. He looked at me differently; like I was funny, like there was something about me he actually liked, like he didn't just want to use me. I do think we loved each other… but not at the right time, not in the right places, and not in the right ways. We spent a little over a year in limbo. I waited for the love I felt for him to be enough, but that boy had damage that wasn’t mine to fix. He couldn't be with me; couldn’t give me the time, presence, and energy I deserved… but I loved him nonetheless.
I loved him at eighteen when I moved into college… and when I met someone else. This new person listened to my stories, and told me I deserved more. I didn’t like him that much, I wasn't drawn to him, but he always seemed to be there for me. He said all of the right things, he made jokes and flirted with me. I didn’t feel nervous around him, so I showed him who I was, and he loved it. He described all the love and attention I should have been getting, how I was pretty and amazing and deserved someone to treat me like it. I had been used to boys trying to use me, but he actually cared about me. For the first time in my life, I was going to pick the good guy, the one who treated me like I deserved, the one who could commit, the one who really wanted me. I sat in his chair, at his desk, in his room when I called the boy from back home and said I couldn’t wait around any more. My ties were cut and I was with someone who was going to love me for real now. I had never been with someone I texted throughout the day, or got to see every night. He cared about me so much.
But he shut down a lot, got drunk a lot, ignored when I said I was upset a lot, and got mad a lot. He thought it was funny how gullible I was, so he used to make me think he was mad at me. I’d say I couldn’t tell if it was real, and he would continue to put on a great show. He would pick me up and then drop me on the floor, push me into bushes, drag me across the tile. He took my stuffed unicorn and threw her on the ground, hid my things from me, said he was going to kick my cat. He said it was funny, he was just playing.
He took my virginity, and told my friends before I could. He liked to show me off as his girlfriend to people I didn't know. He liked to tell everyone the details of our relationship. He made sure everyone knew he was having sex with me. He made sure everyone knew I was his property.
He started to call me names. Started to yell at me when we fought. Started to get mad every night. Every day I had other parts of my life to live, and every day he expected all of my time to be his. He wouldn’t eat unless he could come to dinner with me. He didn’t go to class or do things for himself. He didn’t spend time with any friends unless they were mine. I said I wanted time with them and he said they were his friends too. I guess that’s why it was okay to text them about me. To point and scream and call me a ‘psycho bitch’ in front of them. To tell me that he hated who I was around them, that they talked about me behind my back, that they didn’t care about me. I couldn’t have friends at home either: he couldn’t trust them, one of them would try to make a move, they made me too busy to answer him.
Each day got worse. I was a shell of the person I used to be: too skinny, too pale, too tired. I could barely keep myself up and yet he put all of his weight on me. I was the reason he was eating. I was his only activity for the day. I was the reason he skipped class. I was the reason he stayed up late. I was his only friend. I was his source of fun, happiness, entertainment. I was the reason he was alive. If I wanted to do something for myself,I was wasting time that could’ve been spent with him. If I had homework, it wasn’t as important as seeing him. If I was having too much fun or breaking a few rules, he would get in trouble, he would be expelled and kicked out of school and disowned by his parents and never get a job and have a failure of a life. All of my actions had consequences for him.
We fought constantly; I was always the one to blame. Every time I said my feelings were hurt he said ‘Well you hurt mine too.’ Every time I told him he did something to upset me, he found a way to make it my fault first. His constant demand for my time made me selfish. He said I didn’t think about how I was making him feel; that all he wanted was to see me but I was making it too difficult. I was overreacting, and harping on the past, and being too sensitive.
We began to measure our relationship in ‘good days;’ striving for just one day without arguing. I waited for one day without getting yelled at, one day without being blamed for something I didn’t do, one day off.
I hated him. I hated when he knocked at my door. I hated when he got in my bed. I hated the way he wore pajamas and the way he sat in a chair. I hated the sound of his voice. I hated when he looked at me. I hated that he called me his girlfriend. I hated when other people saw us. I hated when he talked to me. I hated when he tried to touch me.
I didn’t think that hating someone was enough of a reason to break up with them. If I tried to, he would just ask why, and what would I say? We fight? I don’t like you? I didn’t think I had a good answer.
I started hoping he would hit me. Started hoping he would do something to cross the line so badly that I could end it right then and there, and never have to explain anything else. I thought just one hit and I would be free.
Finally, I couldn’t stand it; couldn't wait around any longer for something to happen. I absolutely loathed him. I was done. He knew what was coming. He said if I broke up with him he would never move on, never get married, never have kids, never love anyone else. He put that on both of our lives.
We talked for hours. We reflected on our relationship and talked about what should have been different. We said we cared about each other. It was civil. And then I told him, that despite all of it, I didn’t want to be together. He was angry, started yelling, tried to leave. I stood in front of the door and sobbed, I begged him to let it be civil. He yelled louder, stood taller, got closer… until I was pinned against the wall. He looked me in the eyes and said my tears meant nothing to him, he had no sympathy for me. I was shattered… but it was over.
He texted me the next few days, saying he didn’t understand. Texts turned into notes slipped under my door. Suddenly he was in our common room an awful lot; watching me go to the bathroom, go to dinner, go to the sink. Watching my roommates leave, watching me come home. He started stopping me in the hall, started knocking on the door when he knew my roommates weren’t home, started pacing the floor at night. He watched for my car out the window. He sent friends to my room to report back what they saw. He told everyone we broke up, told all my friends he was going to kill himself. Told me he was ruined forever and had no reason to live anymore, that I was torturing him. He complained about me running him while I got no closure and no ending. I laid awake at night wondering if any of it was real, or if I was just something shiny for him to play with. My skin felt so dirty. I hated myself. Hated myself for letting him touch me, watch me cry, see me naked. For ever saying I loved him.
I waited months for peace that never came. A no-contact order meant he couldn't talk to me, so he sat as close as he could, talked to everyone around me, made sure he was near me. A blocked number meant he couldn’t text me, so he used everyone else to keep tabs. Going home for the summer meant he couldn’t reach me, so he found a way to send me a voicemail. I saw him in every face and felt him in every crowd. I scrubbed and scrubbed but he was still in my skin. He was on my clothes, and under my sheets. I saw him every time I closed my eyes.
It wasn’t long until someone contacted me, saying he wouldn’t stop writing drafts of letters to me, talking about me, looking at my pictures. He said I wouldn’t go anywhere the next year without him being there. He would make sure anyone I talked to knew that I was his. We would be together again.
I started to realize how calculated every move was. I remembered him telling me he knew who I was before we met, how he had planned to take me back to his room that night. He was somehow always around. He listened to all the things I wanted to hear, and then knew exactly what to say. He had planned it all to get what he wanted. I was a game, a pawn, a prize.
I was nineteen when I stood in court for the first time. When I had to explain why I was scared to be at home, scared to go to work, scared to go to school. Nineteen when a lawyer looked me in the eyes and told me that everything I described was abuse.
I was twenty when I realized I was changed forever. My brain chemistry is different now; I live every day with OCD and anxiety from trauma. I spent the first year missing the girl I used to be, but I realize now how much she lacked the bravery and confidence I see when I look in the mirror today.
I will be twenty-one next month. Every once in a while I have a nightmare, but I wake up and realize I’m not living it anymore. I write every week, and speak to women and girls who have lived through the same traumas as me. I found passion in advocating for women. I am in a happy, healthy, and loving relationship. I will be twenty-one next month, and forever I will be no one’s prize, no one’s game, no one’s object.
