All he wanted was my innocence. He used me, used my depression against me, verbal abuse day after day. “You’re too happy, you’re too sad, you are such a child.” Because of him, I fought with my parents, family, rebelled, did drugs, drank and I acted like I was proud of it. I lost who I really was even when I didn’t know myself. I became the worst person I could be when he was around. He talked about intimate personal things about me in front of everyone. He cheated on me and stung me along when things didn’t go his way. I watched him push me away as he got closer to her even when we were still in a relationship. When she got depressed and started hurting herself, he threw it right back at me “don’t go hurting yourself just to get attention from me!”

We decided to go to Vegas for my birthday and he wanted to bring her along. We had our own room, our friends in the other. We started to mess around and one thing led to another. After some time I wanted to stop and I told him to stop but he kept going. It started to get really rough and hurt really bad and I told him it was hurting and to stop again, but he still didn’t stop until he felt he was done. I was in so much pain so I stayed laying on the bed. When we got up, we got decent and joined our friends, they thought we were just having crazy sex. After that weekend, we broke up. At one point some of us friends went to get coffee and I overheard him say to someone, “All I wanted was her innocence.”

Around this same time my parents were starting to go through their divorce. It didn’t make things easy at all. I smoked when I shouldn’t have. For years all I wanted was to hurt him back, to get revenge on him. Even 3 years into the next relationship I had, that was all I could think of. I wanted to hurt him, I wanted to kill him, I wanted him to die, four of five years I would try to get my revenge, try to figure out where he lived.

After some time I forgot about it. Some things changed. Another 5 years passed and here I am now. But I can’t forget the way it made me feel, the way it still makes me feel about myself. So violated and dirty and broken. I should had my guard up. I shouldn’t have given myself away so easily. Is it my fault that this happened to me? That I let it happen? Who is it that I need to forgive? I don’t want to talk about it because I feel so ashamed of myself. Even just writing it down is hard. I don’t want to cry anymore. I don’t want to hurt anymore or feel this way and I keep saying that every single time and now I sound like a broken record. I don’t want to tell this story anymore. At the same time, I know my life wouldn’t be the same if none of this happened. I wouldn’t be the person I am. I would probably be lost in a world of shadows hiding behind everyone I could, like everyone else and not having my own mind, my own personality. And even when Derick tried to turn me into someone else, he got me to find my own true self. As harsh of a reality that I had to go through with them, all I had to do was to look deeper, behind what was really happening. In a sense, maybe I should thank them, because of them, I am not as sensitive, I can think for myself and know that I am making the right decisions in life. I have the strength to stand up for what I believe is right.

**This is something I wrote a long time ago. I found it in one of my journals. I wrote it because I’ve gotten over, worked through this particular part of my life.**