From Victim to Victorious...Several Years Later

I do not get anxious about writing. I get anxious about calling people on the phone I've never met. I get anxious when someone is mad at me. I get frequently anxious about what might happen if we lose our home. I do not get anxious about writing. I am anxious, however, to write about this topic. I come from a tradition of keeping secrets. This relationship, the one I'm about to talk about in front of everyone, is still not talked about. I will say that I do not harbor resentments against my parents about what happened. There was a lot I kept from them. There was a lot I kept from everyone. I spent a lot of time in therapy talking about this relationship; it's only been recently I've had an epiphany about the nature of the relationship. 

I was in an emotionally abusive relationship. I will not divulge the abuser's name because this is not his story, it's mine. I will call this person Bob. I will share aspects of our relationship I've never shared. Some of it will be graphic. My hope is two pronged. One, I hope it untangles me internally. Two, I hope helps someone else untangle. 

I will start at the beginning. I met Bob in the neighborhood when my family first moved to Streamwood. I don't remember why, but one of the first times we met, I punched him in the stomach. I was such a tomboy--I know that doesn't explain my behavior, but it's the only explanation I have. 

Bob and I were in orchestra together, and that started in fourth grade. He played the bass, I played the viola. We also played soccer together. I did not develop a crush on him, really, but he quickly became one of my best friends. We talked on the phone all the time. I can still remember his phone number, I'm not sure why. I did everything I could to stay up late talking to him. 

At school, it was different. A lot of girls thought he was cute. He never really wanted for attention from girls. I, on the other hand, was obsessed with boys but never could get their attention. I would talk with him about boys I was crushing on and he even tried to help me out. He would try to get the boy I liked to talk to me. I would always screw it up. 

I will take a minute to say that I have always been a dreamer. I grew up watching romantic comedies. Even in grade school, my ideas about love and dating were heavily colored by Hollywood. This is not good for someone living in Streamwood because none of the boys there received a memo about it. I expected way more from them than they would have ever been able to deliver. 

I should also mention that, in elementary school, I regularly met with the school social worker. My teachers realized, perhaps before anyone else, that I was a little bit different. I was labeled "sensitive." I reacted to things (positive and negative) with more gusto than my peers. It was helpful to talk to Mr. Copeland, but made me stick out like a sore thumb. My peers knew I was talking to him. They were not cruel about it, but they knew. Then, in sixth grade, I wrote a heavily detailed suicide note. That earned me a month-long trip to Forrest Hospital, a behavioral health hospital in Des Plaines. People were all very kind to me when I returned to class, but again, it was something everyone (including Bob) knew. 

I did have a smattering of girlfriends in grade school. They knew about Bob. I constantly talked about him. We rode the bus together to orchestra practice. We played video games together. There was nothing untoward about our relationship. We were simply two people of the opposite sex who were also best friends. 

Middle school changed things a bit. He started "going out" with girls. I started obsessing about his best friend. This was beyond just a crush. I was full-blown, over the moon about this guy. And about five other guys. And I was still very socially awkward about the opposite sex. I wanted guys to be bold about how they felt about me, my spazziness acted like a forcefield of sorts. It allowed information to go out, but repelled people away from me. 

Bob was going out with one girl in particular for most of middle school. I would hang out with them sometimes, but I hated being the third wheel. It was during his relationship with her, though, that our relationship shifted. It was a subtle shift. I don't recall exactly when it happened, although I think it coincided with me getting a phone in my room. 

Bob knew that there were four main guys I had a crush on. At the end of our phone conversations (sometimes hours past when I should have been on the phone), he would tell me a "story" about one of the guys. That's what we called it, but in reality it was a sexual fantasy. It became my treat from him. I grew up in a house where we went to church and espoused the value of purity. I never told anyone about these phone calls. Not my pastor, my therapist, girlfriends, anyone. I locked this up and put it somewhere no one would ever see. 

Eighth grade was one of my favorite years of school. I was still pretty awkward, still boy crazy (all of it unrequited) and still a spaz. I had a lot of friends in different circles. I don't know why, but things just clicked for me and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Halfway through eighth grade, though, my family moved from Streamwood to Elgin. My mom drove me to middle school every day so that I wouldn't have to switch schools mid-year. The long-term impact was that I would not be attending the same high school as most of my close friends. I would be attending Elgin High instead of Streamwood High. It was crushing and disappointing and tough to process. 

Bob and I kept in touch via the phone. He would still, from time to time, tell me a "story."

Freshman year was rough, I'll say that. I was on the swim team, I did well academically, but I really had no friends. Meanwhile, the church I had been attending for many years (since we had moved to Streamwood) closed. My family embarked on a journey to find a new church. The problem was that every youth group I visited, those kids had known each other for years. I was the outsider. It was awkward and difficult to form new friendships. I felt like I was trying to add a wedge to a Trivial Pursuit piece. There's only room for six wedges; there's no physical way to add more. At these different churches, I felt like the seventh wedge piece. There was no way I was ever going to fit. I floundered. I had always found solace at church. There were always friends and friendly faces there. I became vocal enough about my fundamentalist beliefs in high school to ostracize myself even from the nerds. There was absolutely no where in my life where I felt like I belonged.

Enter Kip*. He was in my freshman biology class. He was good-looking, funny and sweet. His friend, Don*, and I hung out some outside of class. I started to get to know him better and it turned out he liked me back. I asked him to Turnabout and that was my first and last good, fun time at a high school dance. I was on cloud nine. He was a sweetie and a gentleman, but he was also a high school boy. My expectations of him were so high that he was never in danger of meeting them. 

As my relationship with him blossomed, I started telling Bob about him. I gushed about the dance, the silly exchanges we had, everything. Please remember, I had no real feelings for Bob. There was a part of me that felt like a relationship with him would be a natural outgrowth, but I never verbalized that to him or anyone. I had long believed that the door in that relationship that led from "friend" to "more than friend" was firmly closed and nailed shut. I didn't think anything of talking incessantly about Kip with him because we were just friends. He was not as excited to hear about me dating someone as I had hoped. 

Instead, he dropped a bombshell on me. He told me that he had been in love with me since sixth grade. He used that word, love. He hadn't told me for this reason or that, but it was true. When he made his male best friend (the one with whom I had been obsessed) give me gifts, those were really from Bob. 

For a girl with Hollywood in her heart, this was (I thought) what I had been looking for. A guy loved me. Finally! It was what I had been hoping for and dreaming about  I fabricated some reason to break up with Kip and Bob and I started going out. 

Here is what I have now realized. Bob and I went to different high schools. We didn't have the same friends. We didn't share the same social circles, go to the same house of worship, etc. It was incredibly easy for him to keep me a secret from his friends. Mine didn't exist, so while I talked a lot about a boyfriend, he could have very well been a figment of my imagination as far as anyone knew. Our "relationship" consisted of him coming over to my house and us hanging out in my room with the door closed. My parents suspected nothing awry; I had known this guy since forever. They knew nothing of the burgeoning sexual aspect of our relationship. In their minds, we were just two friends hanging out together. I had been too embarrassed to talk to my parents about dating Kip, so when I dumped him, there was nothing to report. I certainly wasn't going to tell them about what Bob had said, how he told me he loved me, how he had been sharing sexual fantasies with me for years.

I was educated about sex through the mandatory Health Ed class at school and through books. My mom gave me a book to read and told me to come to her with any questions. I knew that premarital sex was against the rules. I had plans to be abstinent. I had no plan whatsoever to talk about sex with my mom. I could not plan for the impact hormones would have on me. We never talked about sex, or hormones, or any of that stuff in my house. I no longer had girlfriends to talk to; they all had gone to Streamwood High and we had lost touch with one another. I wasn't going to talk about feeling horny with my new friends at church and I certainly was not going to talk with any pastor about it. 

Bob and I made out behind closed doors. It felt good. I had no idea that doing something against God's law would feel good. But I at least had my wits about me. We always kept our clothes on. Always. Kissing turned into heavy petting, but always with clothes on. It was a weird quirk of self-preservation, I think, that caused me to make and keep that rule. 

But Bob and I never went out in public together. I would try to make plans with him to go to the mall together, to go out to dinner, to go somewhere, occupy the same space together in a public area. I wanted to show everyone that we were boyfriend and girlfriend, but something always came up. If I pushed too hard, he would get pissed and give me the silent treatment. For someone like me, that was a fate worse than death. So I would back down. I would stop asking, even though I secretly yearned for him to make some public acknowledgement of our relationship. 

The summer after Freshman year, I was very busy and travelled a lot. I went to Mexico to be in my cousin's quinceñera, I had swim team and I worked a bit at summer camp. I tried to call Bob and chat with him, but he was very distant. He felt marginalized (not his words) about all of my activity and how I didn't have time for him. I'm not kidding, that's what he told me. I was dumbfounded. The person who was unwilling to acknowledge me in public was pissed that I had a life. I didn't see that as an earmark of emotional abuse, but it is. He dumped me and I was convinced I had done something wrong. 

I started my sophomore year with lots of promise. I started having feelings for a guy and although they were unrequited, it was fun to flirt. I shined academically; I got straight As both semesters. I did well with the viola and also qualified for Conference swimming the 100M Breaststroke. I started seeing a therapist who helped me work through my break-up with Bob. I was on sure footing. 

Then, weeks before Junior year started, my phone rang and it was Bob. He told me he had been lying in a hospital bed with a collapsed lung. He thought about his life and knew he wanted, needed, to set things right with me. If I could time travel, that's the day I would visit. I would shout at my younger self, "slam down that receiver and never talk to him again. Run away from that relationship as fast as you can."

Alas, though, Hollywood was still in my heart. He sounded reticent and I opened the door to him again. This time, though, we would keep the door to my bedroom open. That way, things would stay calmer, boundaries wouldn't be crossed. I have since learned never to underestimate two horny teenagers who have already gone down a road. I have also learned to have grace for those who return to their abusers. Here is a guy who treated me horribly. I was completely at his mercy; his feelings were my feelings, his thoughts were my thoughts. I knew, in my gut, that something wasn't right. I returned to him because it was comfortable. I returned to him because I believed he had changed. 

We really (again) just got together to make out. I still didn't have anyone to help me process this. I knew I wanted to be spending time doing things other than making out. I would beg with him, plead really, that we go to the mall. I wanted someone, somewhere to know we were dating. But it was the same as it had ever been. If I pushed too hard, he would shut down, shut me out. He had me trained to believe that I should be grateful for what we had together (which, really, was not a lot). 

It was inevitable that we were going to get caught making out. Unfortunately, it was at the most in-opportune moment. We had progressed to dry-humping (actually, at the time I didn't know it had a name--it's not been until the last several years that I heard about that phrase). My dad came out of his room and saw Bob on top of me. He and I locked eyes and the shame was immediate. To his credit, he walked downstairs rather than coming into my room, pulling Bob off of me and throwing him down the stairs. He called Bob's mom to come and pick him up. Just before Bob left, he shoved my hand down his pants. It was unexpected and it caught me off guard. 

After he left, my parents convened a meeting and, with solemn faces told me Bob's mom told them she didn't even know we were dating. She thought he was dating another girl. They also, with disappointment twisted around their expression and words, told me that I should only be doing what I had been doing with my husband. I was so flustered that I couldn't even explain that we weren't having sex. I felt crumpled up and dirty, a discarded piece of notebook paper with a hapless doodle on it. It was as if someone had sucked the air right out of my soul.

The death knell was when I called Bob. He didn't apologize. He didn't have a good reason why his mom didn't know we were dating. He didn't try to comfort me or call his mom crazy or anything. 

Now, I understand that he was a teenage boy not capable of Hollywood chivalry. I get that he had been caught red-handed and was probably a bit embarrassed. I think there is something to that, but I don't believe that was all of it. He never hit me or threatened me with violence. He never made me go sexually beyond where I wanted to go, but there was still abuse. 

I was the week wildebeest. I had emotional issues, I was unstable, had low self-esteem. All of these things made me especially vulnerable to emotional abuse. I had no real support system. He became my whole world because he knew me so well. I got cut off from forming any other close friendships. He never wanted us to be seen in public. When I tried to push the issue, he cut me off emotionally. I had no one else to go to, so I would kowtow to him. It wasn't a day or age when emotional abuse was talked about. I heard a bit about physical and sexual abuse, but he wasn't like that. The haunting refrain of "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me" convinced me that the damage couldn't be permanent. 

I can tell you, though, that it spun the floor right away from me. I was in a carnival ride, spinning around and around, unable to gain my footing as I slipped toward the ground. My grades dropped, I gained a bunch of weight, I was weepy. These are things you could dismiss as "normal" teenage things, but I'm telling you now that it wasn't normal. I carried shame around for years. I felt like, if only I had done something different, maybe he wouldn't have done that. It changed my entire outlook on myself and on life. 

This is a story I've never told from beginning to end. I am ashamed to say that, over the years, I would miss him and re-establish contact. It always ended the same way. We would talk for a few days, we'd get together to make out and then he would avoid me like the plague. I didn't date anyone else in high school and only briefly dated someone in college. 

I would love to say that this ugliness is all behind me, but it's not. I still doubt myself and my abilities. I am a beautiful woman. Yes, I am overweight, but I am a child of the King. I am royalty by birth. I am smart, caring, compassionate, funny, hard-working and passionate. I have a wonderful, handsome husband and three beautiful children. My husband thinks I'm sexy. The voice in my head, though, is still sometimes Bob's voice. It tells me I am not beautiful. It tells me I'm worthless. It's a loud voice sometimes but other times it's just a whisper. 

I still know his number by heart. I've looked him up on Facebook. He is married with two kids and seems successful. He married his high school sweetheart and it makes me sick to think he was dating her and fooling around with me. 

There is so much insight in hindsight. I was taught about how to deal with external peer pressure, how to say no, all of that. What they didn't teach me about was internal peer pressure. I didn't understand that this kind of peer pressure is so much more powerful. I didn't say no to Bob, or demand better treatment or tell him to fuck off because I was so desperate to fit in somewhere, with someone. I didn't go to parties in high school because I was afraid someone would pass me a beer, but I didn't have the courage or belief in myself to stay away from Bob. I don't know if any of this could have been prevented. I believe I'm walking a path now that's the right path. My past is in the past, but it has shaped today's path. If I just disavow that this relationship happened, I am changing the course of my life now. It happened and it was unfortunate. I am sad that I gave Bob so much power. The odd thing is, for a girl who was such a Christ-follower, I sure followed Bob a lot more. 

I hope that, when Bekah starts dating, I can be more vigilant. I think every generation improves. I am praying that she becomes a Proverbs 31 woman, someone who is beautiful inside and out and who's feet and heart are planted in God's promises, not in the world's lies. I think romantic comedies have their place, but I hope that she sees puppy love and teenage love for what they are; just a small peek into the love the Lord has for us. 

As for Bob...well, I wanted to draw and quarter him. I was angry at him, then at myself, then at the world. I am grateful that God's love redeems. I am grateful to be raising my hand with God's in victory over this awful experience. I am glad, finally, that I had the courage to tell the story from beginning to end. And I am glad that at the end, there is always a new beginning.