Noticing Red Flags in Abuse

Part 1

Domestic violence is a funny thing. When its occurring you don’t even realize its happening. You don’t realize they are sucking the life out of your soul and leaving you with nothing as you continue to fight to keep this person in your life. From the I love you’s, to turning my back on friends, to the blood on my face and bruises on my body, to calling hotlines to talk about the experience I was having since none of my friends wanted to hear about it anymore. It was the worst time of my life but also the best, I wouldn’t trade it for the world because it made me the person I am today. I want to share bits and pieces of this story with you all. So people can know it is okay and this can happen to anyone and to not be ashamed of it. It shaped you into… you and thats a beautiful thing.

You came into my life unexpectedly and beautifully. When I thought I knew myself the most you opened a door that I have never seen before. A door I did not know existed. A door you see on the big screen but never thought you would actually experience yourself. You walked through the door without any trouble at all, as if it didn’t have a bolt lock on it due to no one entering it before. You were the person everyone wanted, the person I heard about through my teammates and had yet to meet. And through my blurred vision from the tequila running through my body you walked in, and out of all the things I can hardly remember that night, I remember this. Clear as day, and I saw what everyone else was talking about but I didn’t want anything to do with you, not for any particular reason but I only wanted to have a good time with my team, meeting a boy wasn’t a thought in my mind.

You sat next to me, without saying a word, without peeping a sound. I thought to myself, “pass the tequila on over.” As the tequila entered my hand and burned my throat and passed through my system the first words you said to me will never be remembered. All I know is, this moment will change my life forever.

As we continued to play kings cup, one of the guys made a rule that every time something was said, the girls in the room had to twerk. So I stood there being the party pooper not participating in this activity. Standing around watching the people around me shake their asses while I was awkward, shy, and did not want any part of it. You sat there and caught that, you saw the innocence in me, little did you know.

But that’s when you fell, isn’t it? That’s when you claim you finally saw something different, something you could pursue, someone you could call your own. If only I knew what it meant to you to call someone your own.

As the night continued, my blurred mind recalls your friend giving us a dare to finally kiss, which kissing a guy at a party or kickback is something I had done this multiple times prior to this night back in my home town. I saw it as no big deal as I grabbed your face to pull it close to mine. I knew, a firework went off, or all the tequila was making its way through my body.

Somehow you convinced me to go to your dorm room, and as we walked down the hall, I recall looking at you in front of me thinking to myself, “What am I doing? I have never done this before, I cannot allow myself to do this.” And I do not know why I went through with this, I guess it was meant to happen so the rest of our journey could occur. My feet could not stop following you to your dorm room knowing what was about to happen and knowing I would not be okay with this in the morning knowing you will turn out to be the same as every other guy and leave the next morning with no problem.

You took the only thing I did not allow any other person to achieve. On the first day I met you, somehow you accomplished taking it. Somehow, someway, and all my faded mind can remember is of me crying. Crying how this was not who I was, who I wanted to be, or how I wanted to be known, and maybe there is more to the story about what happened that night, maybe some thing went on besides you taking my virginity that made me burst into tears. However, I cannot recall, I cannot remember, besides you wiping away my tears telling me it was going to be okay.

I woke up the next morning with no text, no call, not a word from you. Telling myself, “I fucked up.” I allowed him in and this was exactly why it has never been done before, I have been used. A few minutes pass and you text me, and as my stomach dropped to the floor and my heart sunk not knowing what to say or do to your, “Good morning” text. After you told me previous times from wiping the tears from my face that you would not leave me with nothing, that you would be there, I didn’t see it coming. I have never experienced this moment before.

Dealing with the headache and what just occurred I told myself to move on and not to worry or stress about you coming into my life, because I already knew you would leave. Why take the time when I knew the outcome? Something that ran through my mind this very morning and to this day I sometimes wish I would had listened and never looked back. But no, I went to your room to see what and who I had done this life memorable experience with and had no regret once I saw you. You lit up the room, you had your sunglasses on in a dorm room for no reason at all with your computer on your lap playing music. All of a sudden it clicked, I loved you. From the moment I walked through that door I loved you, and for some odd reason, I knew you felt the same way. Although, at this moment it was too soon to love you, I knew this was going to be something special somehow, I knew, but man was this lust was strong. It was the kind of feeling you see on the movies that you know is going to last forever, but the thing about movies, they never show you how it really ends.

The next two weeks was one of the best moments of my life. When it came to pulling your bed in the hallway to watch a movie with your roommates, to learning about each others lives and how we want to change the world, to smoking weed in the bathroom, to feeling your chest on my cheek and realizing this is what home feels like. I never could imagine my life without you, in just two weeks, I knew I loved you. Maybe some people would say it was lust, and maybe it was, but all I know, is I loved you with every inch of my body.

Until the day came, until the first trip I was gone away on games and you were at the dorms. Until the day came where I should’ve went sprinting in the opposite direction away from you, slammed it shut, and bolted it locked again so you could never come back, but instead I allowed this pain to enter my body and shatter my soul.

Riding home from games late at night thinking about how excited I was to come back to you. After a long weekend your face was the only thing I wanted to see, to touch, to feel. Seeing your name pop up on my phone was the best feeling, the first time I ever had hearts next to a name was a pretty big deal. It warmed my heart and lifted my soul, until I read the message.

Accusing was the first sign. The first sign that slapped me across the face and I didn’t realize a damn thing. This message made my heart sink, my hopes shatter, the first time I ever felt I was about to lose something I cared so deeply for.

You saw comments on an my Instagram page. Comments from boys from high school that I considered homies, that I felt nothing for, that I had nothing with. And because you saw the hearts and kissing faces you assumed, instead of trusting, you assumed. Assumed that I was cheating and had someone else in my life besides you. Because I did not ignore the comments and responded.. all hell broke lose. It was as iff World War III was happening in this moment and I didn’t understand. I had to drive home wondering what was about to happen and what I had done wrong. Why did you accuse me? All I could think was, what happened to you prior to this to automatically not trust me? What should’ve crossed my mind is what you were doing, the accuser is typically the one doing is something I had to learn through all of this.

Pulling up to the school I have never felt so nervous, I have never felt so.. scared. Ran by my room and dropped my luggage off and hit the elevator door button to go up to your room to see what was going on. I couldn’t lose you, there was something I felt, something so strong that all I knew was I needed to do everything to fix this, when it wasn’t my problem to fix. Red Flag #1.

As your roommates let me in, I opened your door to find you doing laundry and not excited to see me. With you cussing; calling me a bitch and to get the fuck out was not something I expected, with many other hurtful words being said. The best part was, this is something I told you I would not tolerate; I would not tolerate someone cheating on me, disrespecting me, or hitting me and it was the three very things I allowed with you. As I took the words you said through one ear and out the other, I continued to try to understand while tears filled my eyes. I told you, “You can’t sit here and tell me you don’t feel something here, something special, please don’t do this.” As you continued to call me names and to get the fuck out I eventually listened as I stormed out the door with my head down hiding my tears.

As I walked out the door I didn’t understand, I walked to my teammates down the hall and cried, and cried, and cried. Trying to understand and as she told me, “That is not normal you need to leave this.” Was the advice I should have took, but then, none of the rest of this story would’ve happened. As I heard her talking I could not listen. I could not believe her because I saw the “good” in you I had love filtering over my eyes and he could never do any wrong to me. No matter what happened, I was too far in and too inexperienced to know.

As we always did, we fixed the problem. Well.. we brushed it under the rug just as we did with 99% of the problems we had. I loved him too much to let this go. Things only got worse, I only got worse. The verbal abuse soon turned into mental abuse, that soon turned into physical abuse. That eventually, all three broke me to hit rock bottom.

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