Why?
WHYWHYWHYWHYWHY? Sometimes that's all I can say or think: Why me? Why did he do these things to me? Why did it hurt me so much? Why can't I just "get over it"? Why did I let him?
No matter how many times I hear, "It's not your fault," I still cannot quite believe that. And some days are really tough, and I think I will never be okay again. Any little thing can trigger a memory. But day by day it gets a little easier. The memories fade just a little, and new, happier memories sometimes start to take the place of the bad ones. But I don't know that I'll ever truly "get over it."
I can't really start from the beginning and tell my story in a nice, neat, chronological and detailed format. It's a mess in my mind, and that's the way I have to tell it. Some memories have been tainted by time, and some have been pushed a little into my subconcious. It's hard to make sense of it all, but I'm going to try, in hopes that my story might help just one person.
I met Ray in the beginning of my freshman year of college. We had little in common except that we had both had some problems in the past. He was into Quake and four-wheeling without a helmet; I was more interested in art and long-distance running. We dated for only three months or so, but they were three of the worst months of my life.
All I remember are bits and pieces. I spent a lot of time in the hospital that semester. I was blacking out almost daily, and looking back, it was probably due to a combination of medical and psychological factors: a heart problem, the wrong combination of psych meds, inadequate nutrition, and (here's where Ray comes in) terror. I was in a constant state of anxiety and fear during those months. I think that subconciously, I realized the only way to escape and be "safe" was to black out and go to the hospital. He never hurt me in the hospital.
I remember being in the ER at the hospital and the nurse asking me, "Is anyone hurting you physically or sexually?" I always said no. I wasn't lying -- I truly believed that Ray was doing nothing wrong.
I remember being thrown against the wall in his room, his huge hands gripping my arms and shaking me, repeatedly banging me against the wall. He was yelling, calling me crazy, telling me to stop crying, to be good. His roommate stood next to him, telling him to stop, but he didn't, and his roommate was afraid of him I think, and so no one did anything to help me. Not that I needed help -- Ray wasn't doing anything wrong, I thought. It was true, I was crazy, and yeah, he was hurting me, but not on purpose, he was just angry and I should have learned to be good like he said.
I remember being with him in the back seat of my car. He had driven us somewhere, I didn't know where -- all I knew is that it was dark and there was no one in sight. I thought we were just going to kiss, but he wanted to go further. He touched me in places I didn't want to be touched, places that no one had ever touched me, and it didn't feel good at all. I tried to say no, to wriggle away, push him away, anything to make him stop. He didn't stop, he just went further. I will never forget the look on his face -- he looked possessed, evil, truly psychotic. I couldn't yell, there was no one to hear me. I couldn't leave, I didn't know where I was, so where would I go? I was afraid, terrified that if I fought he would hurt me even more. He was stronger than me. My mind clouded and I don't remember much else about that night or how I got back to my dorm.
Ray liked fast things, and it extended into his driving. He didn't have a car or insurance (I don't even remember whether he had a valid license), so he always drove my car. I am a cautious driver; Ray was not. We flew down the highway at 100 miles an hour. I hated it, but there was nothing I could do. I tried asking him to drive more slowly, and I remember once he threw the car into reverse on the highway, and somehow nothing bad happened, but it was terrifying.
We were in the parking lot at the mall in Taunton. I was crying, so sick of him hurting me that I wanted to die. I told him that -- that I wanted to die, I didn't tell him why, just that I wanted to. (I didn't really want to, I just knew no other way out of all this.) I kept crying. He didn't like it when I cried. He wrapped his hands around my neck and squeezed tighter and tighter. I was sure that this was it, that I was finally going to die. I survived an eating disorder and several years of cutting and being suicidal, but now this was it. I was going to die. "Is this what you want? IS IT? IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT?" He was yelling at me, getting angrier every second. I knew that if I didn't think quickly, he really would strangle me to death. I was panicking, squirming, could barely breathe, but I came up with an idea. I banged my hand into the car window as hard as I could. It startled him just enough that he loosened his grip on my neck and I was able to wriggle myself free. I started the car and drove back to school, him sitting in the passenger seat. I struggled to keep my tears in. I should have known better than to cry in front of him. I didn't blame him for trying to kill me, it was my fault, I said I wanted to die and so he was just doing what I "wanted."
I am not completely dumb; I knew I wasn't happy with him. Although it took me many months to recognize what he was doing was abuse, I knew enough to see that I wasn't happy. I tried breaking up with Ray many times, but somehow we always ended up back together. He said he was sorry, that he would be more respectful, that he would change. He would take me out to eat, buy me a ring or a necklace, and we would be back together. I truly wanted to believe that he would change, that deep inside, he was a good person. Sure, he spent his childhood breaking boy's ribs, setting fires, hurting animals, but he was older now, and he could become more mature -- or so I thought.
I was coming back from a weekend with a friend. My friend called Ray's roommate to find out where Ray was. The roommate had some news for us: Ray had brought a gun to campus. It was a high-carbon powered bebe gun, which I later found out could do some serious damage or even kill you. My friend's parents drove us over to the campus police station, and my friend made a report. Sure enough, they found the gun locked in a box in Ray's room. He had been planning to use it for "target practice," using us as targets. My counselor took me to court and I got a restraining order against Ray. Back at school, I had to testify to the judicial board that he had been violent and had hurt me sexually. I never called it abuse. I said the bare minimum, as much as was needed but not all the details, not everything. I couldn't tell anyone EVERYTHING. Anyway, he was kicked out of school. He occasionally sent me emails/IM's and showed up on campus to kind of taunt me or something, but fortunately he was never able to get close enough to hurt me again.
Looking back, I feel that Ray was truly psycho, and I realized one day in a psych class that he perfectly fit the criteria for antisocial personality disorder (if you want a picture of this disorder, just look at prison inmates). HE HURT ME. I was afraid to trust anyone, afraid to walk around alone, afraid of cars (I had developed a serious phobia of driving), afraid to cry. Usually a straight-A student, I all but failed my first semester classes.
The one thing I really regret is that I didn't press charges, that I let him go free. I later found out that he was being seriously abusive to at least one (and probably more by now) other girl, and I LET HIM. I LET HIM GO FREE, without even an arrest. I could have stopped him from hurting someone else, but I didn't, I was too scared, too hurt, too screwed up to press charges.
Will it ever stop?
I was sitting in the cafeteria at UMass one evening in early December, telling bits and pieces of this story to Dave. It was the second, maybe third time I had met him, and here I was pouring my heart out to him, telling him all about Ray and about cutting myself, starving myself, being locked in a psych ward for an entire year. And he was listening. He listened intently, sympathized, made me feel justified in my pain.
We talked for hours, and Dave shared some stories of his own past, of his stepfather trying to stab him and of being a foster child, of growing up without a mom and of finally being adopted by a single father at age 18. He was like me: lonely, depressed, afraid to trust, afraid to love. By the end of the night, we had kissed. I still didn't even know his last name, but I agreed to sleep over in his room. It didn't go much farther than kissing, but I still regret it. You spend a night in a guy's bed when you barely know him, and he assumes he'll be able to "get with you." However, I don't believe in sex before marriage, and he definitely wasn't going to get very far with me.
We were a couple for about a year, and I spent about 50% of that time pushing him away and telling him no, I wouldn't change my mind about not having sex. He was relentless, but one thing I am proud of is that I never gave in and had sex with him.
I set some limits sexually, and he broke those limits. You can only say no so many times, push someone away so many times. He did what he wanted and disregarded how much it hurt and upset me. He insisted on sleeping in my bed with me, and I would wake up in the middle of the night with him fondling me, touching me sexually, doing other things to me that I will not mention here. He had control of me, really; he was bigger than me, and although I was strong, he was stronger. He also had a way of manipulating me, making me feel so bad about "what I was doing [or not doing] to him" that I felt like a horrible person and often ended up doing whatever he wanted. If I asked him to leave my room, he would bang on my door for hours, throw rocks at my window, call me over and over and over until I had to turn off the ringer on my phone.
We had been going out for 4 or 5 months when he finally crossed the line in a way that was so blatantly obvious and disrespectful that I felt completely justified in breaking up with him. I agreed to remain friends, however (Mistake #577). Not much changed in our relationship; we still spent every minute together, we just didn't kiss or spend the night together. He still had control over me; I remember him threating to kill himself if I didn't say I loved him. He grabbed my knives and I wrestled them away from him; he ran out of the room and, disheveled and with knives strewn all around me, I dialed 911.
That summer, he somehow convinced me to go back out with him. I did still care about him, even after all he had put me through and all the pain he had caused me. And there was definitely a physical attraction between us. Against my instincts, I agreed that we could get back together.
For a short time, things were better, but by the time we started sophomore year of college, he was once again taking advantage of me -- sexually AND financially. He would kind of "trick" me into thinking we split the dinner checks and other bills equally, but I knew (and refused to admit to myself) that I was actually paying for everything. He was lazy, refusing to get a job, a license, or any other "adult" responsibility.
He was extremely immature. I remember one time taking him with me when I went to my psychiatrist to pick up a prescription. My doctor's office was in a psych hospital in Providence; Dave had once spent a few weeks in a psych hospital. Before I knew it, he was refusing to walk down the hall with me to the office. He sat down on the ground, and when I tried to cajole him into getting up, he stood up and pulled down his pants. At 19 years old, he stood in the hall in only his boxers, and I had never been so embarassed in my life.
Things just kept getting worse. More and more often he would get rough with me. He refused to control himself sexually, and I rarely slept because I was afraid of what he'd do to me while I was not awake. He continued to bang on my door if I refused to let him in my room; I would get phone call after phone call from people in my building asking me to make him stop, or wondering if I needed help or the police.
Finally, one day in November, he became very violent. I was sitting at my computer, and he spun my chair around. I turned back to face the computer, not wanting to play his game. But he got angry and spun it back, toppling the chair over. He hit me and threw the chair against the heater. I tried to run out of my room, but he grabbed me and pinned me down on the bed. Somehow I manged to get myself free, and I tore out of the room, down the hall, and outside. I was hysterical, my breath unsteady, arms shaking, trying my hardest not to cry. I was bruised and in pain, and my glasses were all bent. That was the last straw. I broke up with Dave for good.
Dave, however, did not want to break up. As usual, he made promises to change. He made up excuses for his behavior and said I was overreacting. He followed me around, and I tried to get away from him. He pushed me; I just tried to walk around him. Part of my problem is that I don't believe in self-defense, so avoidance was my only option. I remember I ran into the bathroom, sure he wouldn't follow me into the woman's room. I was wrong. He trapped me behind the door, pushing the door into me despite my efforts to push the door away. I was sore for many days after that.
Several friends and co-workers who had an idea of what was going on convinced me to get a restraining order. I didn't want to, and I was scared. I thought that since I had already gotten one restraining order against a guy, no one would believe me. I got the restraining order, talked to some cops and the judicial people at school, but never formally pressed charges. He stalked me constantly, violated the restraining order several times, and was arrested and sent to jail for a night. I still had it in my mind that I didn't want to hurt him, to get him in trouble. I still don't want to. I don't want to get him in more trouble, but every day I am afraid for my safety. A restraining order is just a piece of paper, it is not armor.
I go to the gym every day, knowing that I will never defend myself physically but feeling better knowing that I COULD if I wanted to. I carry my cell phone everywhere, even though I am afraid to call the cops. The cops HAVE been great, trying to help me as much as possible, but I still think they might not believe me if I report something. I feel like I have no credibility, because who would believe a girl who had gotten herself into such bad situations SO MANY TIMES??
So I keep my doors locked and I am careful, cautious about where I go, what I do, and who I'm with. I feel like I must seem paranoid, but I don't want to get hurt. I am happy now -- I have a GREAT boyfriend who I've been dating for about 6 months, I am doing well in school, I love both of my jobs, I have wonderful friends. I don't want to lose all that. Every day I have to fight, not just to keep myself physically safe, but also to keep myself sane. It is so easy for me to fall into a state of fear, anxiety, or depression, because so many things trigger memories and feelings. I am frequently fighting back tears.
But I try to talk about it, to occasionally let myself cry about it. I pray and I try to put all my faith in God, that He will protect me and heal me. I have a strong faith community that has helped support me, and my friends, family, and boyfriend are always willing to listen. I am doing better, slowly healing. I cry less often and feel happier more often. Most days lately I am doing great, in fact!!
Last updated 9/03.
