Shortly after I returned home from church camp, my life turned around again - Satan took hold of me in a major way. I was hanging out with my brother and his friend, a boy who lived in the house behind us. He was about sixteen years old. He was developing film and he asked if I wanted to help him. Of course, I thought it would be a really cool experience, so I did. We went into a darkroom, and there was a piece of plywood over the light switch. I was sitting next to him wearing a cool-lot (unfortunately this provided easy accessibility). He reached down the front of my cool-lot and fondled me. I didn’t know what to do except reach behind the plywood and turn on the light. I couldn’t say anything. I just ran home and my sister, Lisa asked what happened. She had tried to warn me to get out of there, because she sensed something not right, but I was way to stubborn to listen to my big sister. So I told her that he messed with me and he was a pervert. But as in the past, I acted as if nothing happened, and so I was the same I always was. But again my insides were trembling with fear, guilt, shame and confusion.
Not long after this incidence, I was introduced to Marijuana (pot) over at my friend Sharon’s house. We were all in one of her sister’s rooms. There were several of us, including myself, Lisa, Sharon and my other friend, Cindy. And believe it or not, even the dog and the cat. We all sat there and got high smoking out of hookahs (big round bongs), and even the pets were getting high. Remember, I was ten, and in a lot of emotional pain. I found my relief. Pot was my escape out of reality. It was great. I immediately became an avid pot smoker. I loved it so much it became who I was - a pothead at age ten. I was already addicted to cigarettes, so pot was just another addition to my already bad habit of smoking.
My new life began. I could escape life any time I wanted by smoking weed. It was totally awesome, or so I thought. I started getting high all the time. Day, night, mornings before school, evenings before bed; whenever I could get away from life, I did. Life did not get easier however, it just kept getting harder.
The emotional pain was so overwhelming and the abuse kept escalating to different levels. When my family and I went on vacation with friends, one of my friends brothers fondled me while I was sleeping on the couch in our rented vacation cabin. Of course I immediately blocked it out of my mind with drugs. I brought plenty of pot on vacation with me that year. Life went on as usual and my pain got worse. All of a sudden, pot wasn’t enough. Alcohol didn’t quite do the job. I soon started experimenting with other drugs at age twelve. I started smoking PCP and taking LSD, while also staying with my drug of choice at the time, pot. I partied all the time. I drank, smoked, snorted and popped everything and anything. The only thing I didn’t do was inject it with a needle. Thank God, because I’m sure I would have liked that too.
I got arrested frequently between the ages of twelve and sixteen. I believe I got in a total of twelve serious car accidents by the time I reached the legal drinking age. Throughout my very early teenage years, I was date raped several times, usually when I was passed out on Jack Daniel’s. People who didn’t even know me sexually molested me. Some I knew, some I didn’t, but never in a million years would I have let them touch me if I was awake. As usual I didn’t let it bother me, at least not on the outside. Inside I just wanted to scream so loud for someone to come and rescue me. However, I had learned at a very early age to never show my pain or express that I was hurt. So I didn’t, I kept up my mask of happiness underneath horrible pain that was eating me away.
I had a lot of relationships where I thought I was in love. I would wait two weeks before I had sex to make sure these guys were going to stay with me, and boom, right after I finally did it, they were history. Some would even tell me they loved me up until they got what they wanted. This was a pattern I couldn’t quite figure out, but got burned by every time. All I was looking for was someone to love and someone to love me. I just wanted a true love and thought each and every one of them was it. In my heart I really believed they loved me, but one thing we all had in common was our love of getting high. So even though they used me for sex, I used them for drugs.
Then I met a guy named John, who I thought really loved me. He was gorgeous and nineteen years old and I was about thirteen. I thought he could take me away from the hell in my life, but he made it much worse. He took complete control over my life. He abused me physically, mentally, verbally, emotionally and sexually. He took who I could have been sexually and distorted it to pornography. He made me say things while having sex. He made me move certain ways and scream certain ways. Everything about me was dictated. He treated me like a dog. He told me what to do and how to do it. Once he suffocated me because I drank too much after he told me to slow down. I didn’t stop drinking, and I passed out. The next thing I knew, I couldn’t breathe. He had his hand over my nose and my mouth. Afterwards, he made me have sex with him. There were several of these abusive occasions.
Another one in particular was one night when my parents were out of town. John came over, along with some mutual friends. I was talking on the phone while sitting on the floor against a refrigerator. The next thing I knew, John threw a peach pie in my face for no apparent reason. My instant reaction was to hit him with the phone I had in my hand. This was a big mistake! I ran outside and he started twisting my arm behind my back. I managed to break free and ran inside and took a shower; not letting him see my tears. I believed if he couldn’t see me cry he really couldn’t hurt me.
Our friends thought that he needed to be humiliated after doing such a good job of humiliating me by throwing a pie in my face. While he was banging on the bathroom door, these guys took his clothes off and threw him into the bushes outside. Guess who paid a price for that one? He came back in pounding even harder on the door this time. Of course, I didn’t know what had happened to him because I was taking a long, emotional shower. I was so afraid to open the door but I felt if I didn’t, he would break it down and beat the life out of me. So I opened it up, and he started throwing me against the wall and calling me a gutter slut. I don’t remember exactly how that night ended.
I can remember sitting in John’s living room watching television and all of a sudden, he would punch me in my chest as hard as he could, while calling me a gutter slut. The abuse went on for at least two years.
I ended up getting pregnant from him twice. The first time I was around fourteen. He had his friends say that they were the ones who slept with me, just in case my parents were going to press charges of statutory rape on him. They didn’t but my dad did threaten him with it in order to get him to pay for the abortion. Afterward, the guilt of having an abortion ate at me every day. I stayed with him at that point not just out of fear, but also out of guilt.
There was a time when we were driving down the road and he was being his usual verbal abusive self. After he told me what a cunt I was, he then put his hand between my legs. I threw his hand away from my body, and he put it back. Somehow, I got the courage to hit him over the head with a beer bottle. We then went to his friend’s, and as usual I started playing poker with everyone, like nothing ever happened. He played the poor pitiful act of remorse on my sister Lisa and my friend, Sharon. I felt sorry for him and decided to go talk to him. I said to him, “Lisa and Sharon said you wanted to talk to me, so what do you want?” He proceeded to say “You killed my baby and you owe me the money for it.” That was the absolutely most hurtful thing he ever said to me. It blew away any of the other abuses he thrust upon me. I actually believed him and bought into this horrible accusation. I stayed with John for several years because every time I got the courage to leave him and start dating someone else, he would manipulate me with guilt to come back.
There was a time when I started dating a guy named Danny, who was also a friend of John’s. One night when Danny and I went out, John and their friend, Mark, happened to be in the car with us. Danny and Mark got to see first hand the abuse I had sustained in the previous couple of years. My ex started reaching from the back seat and punching me in my chest and ripping off my shirt. It was humiliating. For some sick reason we got back together again after that.
Anyway, within that time period of dating Danny I got pregnant again, this time it was in my fallopian tube, which almost killed me. I thought it was Danny’s, but it wasn’t because I had already been bleeding while we were having sex. The only other person who could have been the father was John. I called him and told him about it, and he was so supportive over the phone, but he never came to the hospital. When I was admitted they explained to me that I was one day away from my fallopian tube bursting, thus causing hemorrhaging and most likely death. I was in the hospital for eight days.