I was wrong

There are so many thing I want to blather on & on about today.

SCOTUS handed down a decision saying accusers MUST appear in court if hearsay evidence, like a 911 tape, is to be admitted. Which means that abused women, who are still living in fear of their abusers, or may have some misplaced emotion for them, have to sit on the stand and be intimidated by him & his lawyers. (Check it out here)

I read a really neat article saying that, though religion (any of them) is nothing more than a social construct, it is a necessary one to keep society functioning, to some degree. (accessible here)

I read a piece at Salon.com that I felt I should write about. You can read it here. It's about a group of young women, all about 20 years old, who've started an organization aimed at educating children & teens, boys & girls, about abusive relationships. Signs of abuse, what to do, where to get help, that sort of thing. I wish I'd had it at that age.

My senior year of high school, I was in an abusive relationship.

He never hit me, but he came close.

He was covertly abusive, you could call it. Our friends (because, by the end, I wasn't really allowed to have any that weren't his, too) thought he was great.

He never said anything bad in front of them. In front of them, he never made me feel like he was the best I could ever do & I should pray to God & thank him every day that Matt (his name, obviously) was in my life.

In front of them, he was peaches & cream, love & kisses.

But, alone, I never felt good enough.

I was a cute, quick-witted honor student who felt like she needed to work her ass off to keep a clingy, controlling, manipulative guy, who barely graduated, happy.

And, I loved him.

Because I didn't know any better. He paid attention to me. I was a geek. What 17 year-old wants a geek with thick glasses who wears baggy jeans & t-shirts everyday?

But, I was wrong.

Once, he raised his hand to slap me.

He brought it half way back down.

I can remember exactly how his face looked.

The fury in his eyes.

The blame he made me take as mine.

Then, he called me a name and told me I was wrong for talking to platonic guy friends between classes. He yelled at me for not doing what he told me to. For going against his wishes, his orders.

I walked out of his house.

The next day I asked him to forgive me. Our friends asked me why he was so upset; what had I done.

Two weeks later, I let him take my virginity. I thought it would make things better. That's what he wanted; if I gave him what he wanted, everything would be fine.

Later that week, as he was grabbing my arm and dragging me down the hall, through the school (so I wouldn't talk to anyone he didn't approve of), I realized that something was wrong.

I thought about how he said he loved me, and almost hit me in the same afternoon. I thought about how much my arm hurt as he was leading me around the school; I wondered if he was leaving bruises.

I thought about how sleeping with him hadn't made anything better, and how he was more and more controlling, even just in the last 3 days.

So, I left him.

On Valentine's Day.

And, my friends (sorry, our friends) gave me shit for weeks, and couldn't understand why I had done what I'd done.

I didn't have the courage to tell they why I'd really left him. I was afraid they all thought too highly of him and wouldn't believe me and would take his side, anyway. I wasn't sure I could put into words the bad feeling in my stomach that told me this was the right thing to do. (I still haven't told most people I knew in high school.)

But, I knew I'd done the right thing.

I'm glad I did it.

He took my virginity, he took my trust in boys for a long time, and he made me feel like I wasn't good as anything but a lust object, a trophy, a THING that could stoke his ego (and him) when he needed it.

To this day, I regard giving up my virginity in a useless relationship with an abusive boy one of the biggest mistakes of my life, and leaving him 7 days later one of my greatest triumphs.

In 14 months, I will graduate law school.

It's been a long time since I've had a day without an honest smile.

Today, I am happy.

And, I was right.