Surviving Domestic Abuse: It Never Stopped

I was 15, I was moving to a new town, I didn’t wanna be that new kid that came in halfway through the semester. I found him. I had just had my heart “broken” for the first time, consistently cheated on, I was young. I didn’t know love was supposed to pain free, I thought it was supposed to be like this, I thought it was supposed to be consistent arguing, consistent pain, never happy. I was never taught better.

I was 15. He was 18, he was the popular wrestler, his dad worked at the school, his whole family was loved, the “it” family of our school – community. I was 15. The relationship started out good, he showed me loved, he enjoyed my body when I felt like no one else would, so I thought. The arguments started to arise over me not skipping school, me not smoking with him, me wanting time without every friend we had around, because I didn’t want him accepting nudes from other girls, and so on and so on. The first time I looked at his phone, other girls after other girls after other girls, I asked him about, he said he was just being friendly, he said that I was dramatic, he said that he only wanted friends, he said that if I had an issue I could leave. I had no one, everyone I knew was in a totally different state. I was 15. He made me believe that it was him or nothing. All the friends I made, were through him in one way or another.

He isolated me, he told me so often that my friends in another state would just abandon me so I instead abandoned me before I could feel the pain of abandonment from them. The first argument we had in person, he said he could kill me if he wanted to, that he could and would seriously f— me up if I continued. I thought he was just mad at me, I was only 15. 16 comes along, I’m in my junior year of high-school, I felt so isolated from everyone that I’d never go to school, I’d skip to hangout with him. I dropped out. I instead decided to get my GED and that we would move in together.

He faked it so well, my parents, my ex-cop dad and my previously in a abusive relationship mom, both did not think he could ever hurt me, damage me in the ways he did. We rented a camper, moved it onto my parents property, things were okay, we lived together, I was away from my parents, he was away from his, we were “adults”. I was 16.

His drug abuse increased, anything he could get his hands on, any alcohol, any pills, anything. I felt like I had to supply, steal my parents pain killers, go broke, consistently work crazy jobs and keep an flow of money coming in to help him, because he couldn’t “handle life” without them. I’d be hungry. I was only 16. I was alone. The first time he ever hit me, he was drinking with my friend, I drove them to get weed, once we got back to my friend’s place he jumped out the car so I went to get him, he fell into a ditch, I was trying to help him up, he wanted to stay there, I just tried to help, instead I ended up under him, him pulling my hair, him putting me in a choke hold and threatening that if I ever did that again, it’d just be worse. If I ever helped again. I was only 16.

The second time he hit me was in the car, driving, we argued, I said something that he didn’t like, he slammed my head into the window until there was blood. He then drove erratically, making a turn too late and almost hitting a steam roller into my side of the car. I wish that would’ve happened then. I wish it ever so perfectly that I wasn’t in that car anymore.

The next time I was hiding in our bathroom after an argument to try to settle down before even trying to speak any, he came in anyways, with a belt, repeatedly hitting me in the head with the buckle until it was covered with chunks of skin and blood. I was too depressed to even get out of bed most days let alone fight back, I let it happen. If I fought back it only would’ve gotten worse. The times like this proceeded where he’d get drunk or high and become out of control, hitting me, bruising me, raping me to the point of becoming unconscious. The first time he raped me I had taken some edibles, I was just trying to sleep, instead he was on top of me, me telling him to stop, me begging him to stop, instead I was met with “I liked it anyways”. I was too messed up to say no, that he was my boyfriend I had to let it happen. I couldn’t fight back. I just laid there, tears rolling down my face, blankly staring at the wall until it stopped, falling in and out of sleep until it started to hurt again. Every time after that he wanted anything I just laid there, I just let him do whatever because if I didn’t want it, I’d just be made to it anyways, but he’d be mad, so it’d hurt instead. I was only 16.

During these times I wrote more suicide notes than I could ever count or even remember, I wanted to be off this earth so bad but I knew that I couldn’t leave my family blaming themselves for not seeing, for not recognizing the signs. They’d always joke oh you’re not hitting her right, when they’d see the bruises, it was laughed off as I slowly started to cover myself more and more. The night that did the most damage, I was drunk, to the point of barely even able to stand. I just tried to go to sleep, I told him no. Instead of just having his way with me, he’d pick me up and throw me out the door, onto cement blocks, I’d crawl inside begging to go to sleep, he’d throw me again. At one point I could hear my mom letting her dogs out as I laid there behind the blocks, all I wanted to do was screaming for my mom to help, I just couldn’t get the words out, I just couldn’t. I laid there until she went back in and then tried to crawl back in again, covered in blood and mud, instead it repeatedly happened. I gave up. I passed out outside, wet and cold, in my own blood and tears. I woke up before the sunrise, snuck in and showered and made myself presentable with hoodies, pants, and socks. to cover every inch he hurt, if it wasn’t covered with clothes, I’d color correct, I’d put concealer and foundation down to my shoulder blades so they couldn’t see the bruises from his fingers from where he’d strangle me the nights before, I’d make it to where it was invisible with makeup or it looked like a scratch a cat could’ve done or a bruise where I could’ve easily blamed it on hitting my head on a bunk we had.

There were also other people who’d satisfy him, I was never enough, I never understood why I was never enough, to love, to be okay with just me. It never stopped. I was only 16.