DC and Sexual Abuse Story From Hilary

by Hilary
(Ashland, Ohio )

It all started when I was a freshman in High School. I started dating a guy whom I felt was charming and fun. One night I left the house with him for a date, but it turned out to be much more complicated and frightening.

He drove me to a parking lot in the winter. He was doing donuts and trying to be cool, but it scared me. He came to a stop by running lightly into a pole where he then turned the car off and locked the doors. He told me to perform oral. I declined, and he undid his pants and grabbed me by the neck and said I wouldn't be going home if didn't do it. He was forceful and rude. Afterward, he took me back, and I was in shock of what had happened. I went to my bedroom and never talked about it to anyone out of fear that others would bully and call me names.

Then the next day at school, he told his friends. He made fun of me and said dating me was all part of a joke. It was the beginning of a terrible teenage life. In the summer of the next year, I met a boy, and a friend dare me to date and sleep with him. It was my first time having intercourse. Ever since then, although mostly willing, he would not let me spend time without him around. He slapped me when I did or said something he considered wrong. He talked to me in a way that made me feel bad if I left him.

I moved away after becoming pregnant by him. I was 15. I had a miscarriage. Then I was back and forth talking to him, then was convinced I should run away to live with him, and I did just that. I walked as far as I could then got a ride by a man the rest of the way. I was found by police and taken to a juvenile center. I stopped talking to him, and he began to stalk and harass me. He would say things like "eventually we will see each other." It continued for about five years. Finally, he lost contact and to my knowledge has not tried since.

When I was 16, I went to a small party where someone drugged and sexually assaulted me. In the morning the perpetrator said I consented, but I didn't remember anything. I never told anyone.

I met another boy when I was 17. We started dating, and I became pregnant. We decided to get married. He called me names, and I'd joke with him, but it hurt. Slowly it became worse, and I found out many times that he was using drugs and sleeping with other girls. He had an affair when our daughter was just two months old, and the promiscuity lasted for years. After an awful domestic dispute, he was arrested and removed from the home. We separated in 2011. The divorce came three years later. The abuse so broke my marriage. He would threaten my life, put me down, demolish things, kept my daughter in her room, blocked the doorway, and called me a fat cow, as well as many other things.

It is now 2016, and I have only recently overcome the abuse and feel as though I am a survivor and no longer a victim.