I have long grappled with whether I should tell the story of how I fell down the slippery slope, getting into an emotionally abusive relationship and allowing myself to get groomed into doing things I never would have imagined allowing. But I have realized that even though it may be painful, my story may help someone getting trapped in a similar situation and give them hope. It might give them the bravery to get out.
So here goes: after high school I moved to the city and started to go to college. I had done very well in my studies and had gotten scholarships to cover my first year of pre-veterinary medicine, and was excelling in my classes. Things were good on the school front, but I suffered even more from the loneliness that had seemed to stalk me all my life. Being away from family and anything familiar was difficult, as being an introvert made it hard for me to make new friends, although I longed for a few close ones. A boyfriend would have been a dream come true, but I had little hopes of that, as I had never received any attention from boys in high school, and my luck in that area seemed to be holding true in college. My one solace was the deep relationship that I had developed in leaning on God and my faith in this time.
One day in the second semester, a classmate that I occasionally studied with invited me to her birthday party at a country bar. I jumped at the chance to spend some time out even though it was not my usual kind of activity. When I got there, she introduced me to her other friends, and one young man in particular caught my attention. He was sitting at a table hanging his head down, looking as sad and lonely as I felt. I felt both sorry and drawn to him, and asked him to dance in an effort to cheer him up. We spent that night in each others’ arms on the dance floor. It was the kind of evening I had always dreamed of, as he told me how beautiful I was and how he wanted to spend more time with me, how I had lifted him out of a dark place and given him some joy.
We began to date that night, and we fell in love fast. I had never experienced this kind of attention and affection before, and we moved very quickly in our relationship. Within two weeks we were sexually active, and I found myself doing things in the bedroom to please my boyfriend’s demands that ashame me now.
My focus was so strongly placed on my new man that my grades started to drop, as I spent more time with him than studying. I never returned for my second year of college, throwing away all of my hard work in the pursuit of something more pleasurable. I stopped going to church, stopped praying, stopped thinking about God- to do so would mean I would have to answer for the rampant sexual relationship we had. Family and friends were concerned and warned me that we were moving to fast, that I needed to think about my future, and that they didn’t have a good feeling about my boyfriend. Of course I rebuffed them, and “followed my heart”. We moved in together several months after we began dating, and were engaged at 3 months. Madness, when I think about it now. I realize now how naïve I was, and that I had allowed myself to be manipulated into a position of submission to my boyfriend.
So much more to come…
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