Would you ever know? by a brave anonymous

I’m 32 years old and I’ve never heard my father tell me “I love you”.  Try as I may, I can only remember one pleasant childhood memory that involved my father.  People always say that a woman’s relationship with her father will forever affect the way she relates to the men in her life.  I have to agree with this 100%.  For me, never feeling an ounce of love come from my father made me latch on to the first man to come along that showed me the slightest interest.  I was always too afraid in high school to date for fear of having to introduce anyone to my father.  So, when I hit 18 and found myself living on my own, I was overdue for some male companionship.   

My first boyfriend was wonderful at first, treated my like a queen…he even had a pet name for me “Angel”.  We saw each other everyday as we worked in the same place and it wasn’t long before we moved into an apartment together.  Soon after I gave my virginity to him, and in my mind, that sacrifice would forever bond me to him.  I didn’t know that drinking a beer or two a night was anything to be concerned about.  I had lived such a sheltered life; I didn’t know what was normal and what wasn’t.  Soon two beers a night became a six-pack, and then a six-pack became a twelve pack.  I’d never seen a drunken person before.  I didn’t know what people intoxicated were capable of.  Never would have I thought that my boyfriend who I loved so much would offer me to his friends if they felt like having sex with me.  I didn’t know that my boyfriend would hold my arms to the ground so he could watch women do unspeakable things to me.  For two years I walked through a maze of empty beer cans unable to escape.  I remember having the courage once to call my mother, who at this point lived across the country and before I could even tell her what was going on, she heard my boyfriend screaming vulgarities at me from another room.  Through my tears, she figured out what was going on, and told me there would be a plane ticket waiting for me at the airport and to come home.  My boyfriend had other plans.  He wouldn’t let me leave and my plane, my only salvation, left without me on it.  I called my mom during his nightly drunken stupor and let her know that I couldn’t leave quite yet, and that I had to wait.  My father got on the phone and said that the next time I needed help, not to call home.  So I hung up the phone, and put up with another year of abuse more horrific than the previous two.   

One night, we were driving home from a bar, and as always my boyfriend was drunk.  I was no longer a person any more, I just went through the motions everyday and felt nothing.  It didn’t matter to me that I let a drunk get behind the wheel of a car, nor did it matter that I was the passenger sitting next to him.  On the short drive home, I remember us side-swiping several cars parked on the side of the road…he never even slowed down the car.  When it finally registered in his mind what had happened, he stopped the car.  So there we were parked in the middle of one of the busiest intersections of the city, and cars were coming at us in every direction.  It was at this point that I took my life back.  I jumped out of the car, ran the rest of the way home, grabbed what I could and never looked back. 

It took me years to get over what I had gone through.  I am definitely not the same person I was back then.  When you go through a life-changing event, you really lose a sense of yourself that can take years to find again.  Today, my first boyfriend is in Folsom Prison serving a life sentence for murder.  I shudder at the thought that I could easily have been his victim.  When you need it the most, you can summon up the strength needed to carry you through anything…I know I did, and I am a better and stronger person because of it.

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