I don’t know if this will be long or not. There are some things that o am still not comfortable talking about, but I need to get most of this out somewhere. Please don’t read this if it will hurt your mental health. There are a lot of things that I will be talking about that are NOT good. Rape, blood, strangling, suicide, neglect, abuse. So many things.

I was raped at fourteen. I reported it to my school resource officer. It was the guy I was dating, and I really, really liked him. We had been talking for a few years at that time, but he had always been “in a relationship” with someone else. He was a year older than I was. We had officially been seeing each other for four months. I went to his house to celebrate his nephews first birthday, and when the younger kids left his room, he gave me my first kiss. He told me that we should have sex, and I told him that I wasn’t sure, but he said it would be fine and he just did. He was a lot bigger than me and I didn’t know what to do. He covered my mouth and kept talking sweetly to me like everything was fine and normal. He pulled out and finished on a dirty tee shirt from his laundry basket. I was bleeding a little. I cried and I was embarrassed and scared to tell anyone. I called my mom from his sister’s phone and told her I wasn’t feeling well and needed to come home. It was the next day at school that I told the resource officer. He sat me down in his office and had me write out the report and immediately filed it and called my mom to come and get me. I couldn’t stop sobbing. She came in and listened to everything calmly and sort of comforted me by putting her arm awkwardly around my shoulder. She seemed off. Even the resource officer noticed that. She told him that she was just shocked. She signed me out, and once we were in the car, she coldly told me that she couldn’t believe that I would report him. She told me that I was ruining his life whether it was true or not. She said that he was my boyfriend and that is what men do. She asked me if I cared about him. I was conflicted. She asked me if it was true, and I told her it was. She started quoting bible scripture to me, and told me that for all intents and purposes, I was his wife now and if I ruined his life, I ruined my own. She said it didn’t matter anymore how I felt, that according to God, we were one flesh. She told me I was ruining our lives if I didn’t tell them that it was consensual. She drove me straight to the sheriffs department and I had to make a new statement, one with her in the room with me while she told the officers that I had been embarrassed and confused. And I did marry him, once I finished high school. After three more years of being quiet and letting him do what he wanted. After he forced himself on me, and forced me to become pregnant. My son is the best thing that ever happened to me, but I wasn’t ready. I didn’t want the “relationship” that I had. And I stayed. I stayed with him for sixteen years. I thought a lot of it was normal. I thought sex was painful and unwanted for women. I thought I was supposed to be quiet and do as I was told. My mom told me that was how it was. That’s how men are. That’s what a wife does. It was my duty. I wasn’t allowed to finish college, even though I got a full scholarship for music composition. I wasn’t allowed to have a job. I wasn’t allowed to have friends. I wasn’t allowed to make any decisions. I wasn’t allowed to eat what I wanted. I wasn’t allowed to want things. I wasn’t allowed to have any say about his flings or lovers. My son was the only good thing in my life. I let him sleep in the middle, because sometimes that stopped his dad from doing things to me. But sometimes he did it anyway, after our son was asleep. And the things he did to me hurt so bad. He tied my wrists and ankles really tight. He would cover me and put porn on and use me. He would put things inside me; a lot of his finger, or tapered candles, or bottles, or other things I don’t want to ever think about again. He made me bleed a lot. He covered my mouth when I cried or told him to stop, or covered my face with a pillow. Then I had a mental breakdown because my grandpa died. That man raised me as much as he could. He protected

Me and my son. I couldn’t tell him everything, but he tried to make sure I was safe. He even moved us in next door when he thought things were bad so he could try to monitor it. Right before he died, he told me that I needed to do the right thing and make a happy, peaceful life for myself and my son. It broke me. After some time to make his final arrangements, something in me snapped. I was leaving with our son. I couldn’t do it anymore. He sent my son into the front room and literally shoved me down the hallway to our room. He shoved me down on the bed and held me down. I was screaming for him to stop. He laid his torso on me and used his right hand to cover my mouth and his left to pull my pants and underwear down. I bit him as hard as I could, and he started strangling me while he did what he wanted to me. Once he was done, he told me I could leave if I wanted, but I was walking and our son was staying with him. I think I was in shock? It was like my mind was fuzzy. It took me some time to stand and make my way down the hall. I tried to get my son, but his dad got the revolver and threatened to shoot himself. My son panicked and refused to leave because he didn’t want his dad to die. He was pulling his are, and begging him to stop. I didn’t know what to do, so I said I wouldn’t leave right then, but my (now ex) husband called my mother over and she kept telling me and my son that this was my fault, and I didn’t love either of them. I couldn’t take it anymore and I ran outside. They literally chased me down the road, screaming and telling my young son that I was breaking apart our family. That I didn’t love him enough to just let him be happy. That I only cared about myself. I was going back and forth on our road (a rural area with hardly and neighbors) and eventually just went back and curled up on the porch until he told me he was leaving with my son. My mom physically held me back, kicking and screaming, while he put my son in our car and drove away to a different state, where his family had relocated to. For almost a year, I stayed in my home with no power and water. I walked next door to drink water from my grandmas house (she has dementia) and I ate bread. My mom would drive me to see my son twice a month for half an hour, where his dad would often blow me off and not even show up with him. When he did show up, he and my mom would just tell me that if I moved there and gave him another chance, I could see my son whenever I wanted. That we could be a family again. Eventually, I caved. Things got worse. By the end of that year(2021) I was hospitalized and eventually put into ICU with COVID pneumonia. I was in there for literally months. My son called me every day, but the man that was supposed to be my husband spoke to me once. For months. Once I was discharged, I found out that he had been seeing several women regularly and leaving my son either alone or with his convicted pedophile sister. The final straw came a week later when I found out he had started hitting my son while I was in the hospital. I called my dad )who had divorced my mom when I was very young) and he came and got us. It’s been quite some time now, and I am divorced. I live ten hours and several states away. I am in a good, healthy relationship with a real man who cares about me and my son. He doesn’t make me do anything. He helps me when I’m overwhelmed. He has helped me to see that intimacy doesn’t have to be painful, and I even want it often. I am still having a hard time wanting things and making decisions. There are still things that I’m learning are NOT normal that I think are. I often feel like I’m broken. Worthless. Used merchandise. Sometimes I feel like I’m getting better, and my suicidal thoughts are less, and others when everything feels skewed and I just want to die. I feel like there are more good days than bad. I have a happy, peaceful life now, but there is so much in my mind. I was an idiot. I was naive. So much of my life is gone now. My partner does know about all of this and more. I feel like I should be happy and over this and moving on, but I’m stuck in some places. I don’t want my son or my partner to feel like they don’t make me happy, because they do! But there is so much going on inside me that I just want to forget about. Sometimes dying feels like the only way, but I can’t leave my son in this alone.