Living: An Open Diary On Sexual Abuse

Thursday. September 10th. 9:32pm.

My sexual abuser and I have a terrible track record. We dated for a week. Broke up. Dated for a year. Broke up. Dated for another half a year. Broke up. Basically went out for another year but it wasn't official. Unofficially broke up again and now here we are. The worst part of this is that I was aware of the abuse the time we were, but weren't, together. I still stayed with him but didn't make it official because it made me feel better. A part of myself hates me for it and another part can't blame. Fuck, actually, most of me doesn't blame me. I don't know what it's like for other victims, but between me and him, we're magnetic. Even when we're not trying to be. We'll get paired together on projects; end up sitting next to each other in the auditorium despite being in completely different classes, end up meeting in the same places. Seems like every year, we fall back into this desperate toxic love.

I looked it up on the Internet, "I'm in love with my sexual abuser" and apparently many are like me. You know, people who date but one is fucked up and ends up fucking up the other too. And no doubt my abuser was fucked up. Parents that blamed him for the loss of their marriage, a family who never appreciated him, a father who verbally abused him and a mother who did it physically. Then I came into the picture. I had just been hurt by someone else but still loving as if it never happened. I was his world and he told me that. Man, he didn't even have to tell me, he showed me.

Our conversations would last for hours. He would tell me how we were going to move into his parents house (because it was in his name now) together we'd have great careers and lives. He had dreams about me being pregnant with his child and would wake up crying tears of joy. He cared to me when I was sick and cherished me as much as he could. But he still abused me. Every day I pain because of this person who loved me so much and didn't know how to control it and at some points didn't want to. I know I make him out to seem terrible and like he never cared about me, but he does, and that makes it worse.  The ironic part is that he always told me he didn't want to abuse me. Those exact words. Because his parents were and he knew he didn't want to be that person. But he ended up that way anyway. He killed me, when all he wanted to do was live in my light.

For the longest time after my abuse I couldn't connect him with my abuser. They were two different people. I could never see the potential to do that in him even though I'd experienced it first hand. I thought I finally got it this summer, but as soon as I saw him something came loose, and then fell off. Then it was gone. I couldn't see him like that, I can't. I wish so badly that could just hate him and move on but its hard. It's hard because he's not only my abuser. He was my best friend, he was my lover, he was my actual boyfriend. He is multi sided. And I truly love every other part and ache for it but I feel guilty because I know that my abuser has to be in there, somewhere, dormant. That scares me.

The very first time we broke up was unlike anything I'd ever experienced before. I've had boyfriends before and breakups were hard but never too bad. It was never that hard to stay away. Just a day after I broke up my abuser, I was in shambles. I felt like I was missing a piece of myself. Keep in mind we'd only been dating for a week and known each other for 3 months at the time. I knew I shouldn't have felt that way. I'm an extremely rational person and usually it's pretty easy for me to step away from people and make rational decisions but I just couldn't this time. When we got together again we were both immensely happy and solidified in love. Actual love. Yet in all that time he was still abusing me, slowly starting. Of course at this point I didn't know. We were just so happy to be with each other.

As we grew in our love people noticed. By the end of the year we had a legitimate fan club. People told us we inspired them, that they loved us, that we were their favorite couple. People voted for us at couple events, teachers told us how much they loved us as we walked down the hallway, hand in hand, our friends were jealous of our connection. We loved each other deeper than I ever thought it could ever go and he felt that too. Believe it or not, he was an atheist when we met, and after we dated, the love I had for him convinced him there was a God. Then he became a catholic. Because of me. That still sticks with me. I also later converted with his help and our love grew even stronger. Yet through it all, he abused me.

See, this is what makes it so hard. We've been in love for three years and try so hard to keep away from each other now but it won't work. As soon as we see each other we can't help ourselves. I've never had such an utter lack of control in my entire life, and control is something I pride myself on. He's my drug, my ultimate love, and my killer all wrapped into one. I hate it so much.

The worst part is, he didn't mean to do it. I know that doesn't change anything, especially because the pain doesn't change because of it. But he didn't mean any of it. He thought we were in a normal teenage relationship. How the guy asks a million times to have sex and the girl dutifully says no a million and one times. It wasn't just that though, not to me.

Remember how I said that I didn't know I abused until I looked up the definition? It was the same for him. When he discovered what he had done he felt "devastated and terrible and like I was going to be sick" a direct quote. He gets sick when really bad things happen, like when I talk about suicide (a long time ago, no worries). Some days it's hard to believe that my abuse was just, a fluke. A mistake. A terrible and exponential one, but just a mistake. I don't understand how the event that ruined my life was an entire mistake.

And one more thing, the love we had for each other was never physical. It was spiritual and mental and we both knew that. We explored that in each other. Sometimes we'd just look in each other's eyes for periods of time, not needing to say anything but feelings everything; or touch our foreheads together like we were trying to share thoughts. It's not ironic to me that he abused me physically, since that was the only place we didn't mesh up.

Knowing all of this, I suspect you won't be surprised to know it's already happening all over again. I feel disappointed in myself but what can I do? I've been here 3 times before and tried insanely hard but nothing. I'm so exhausted and it's my last year. Once college comes I know I'll be okay but for now we're both already slipping into each other. I don't know how to feel. On one hand, I'm afraid and on the other, he's still my best friend. I wish so badly that I could hate him. I'm going to a football game and he's going to be there also and shit we're probably going to hang out. And then I'll feel insanely happy, then terribly guilty and the cycle will begin. This chapter is long enough so I'll stop. I'll update after the game. Tell me what you guys think and try to remember my circumstance. Don't be too mean. I know what I'm falling into after all. Wish you all great days/nights. Peace.