Lost In Lust

Promise

As a teenager growing up in a farming community, I felt deprived of many things: true excitement, freedom, abundance of friends and attention from men – the last one might have had something to do with my lack of a father since a rather young age.

I had repressed a lot of my childhood and didn't want to talk about it to anyone. My mom was a strong, independent woman and I wished to follow in her footsteps. Not talking to her and being open with her about certain things led me down quite the destructive path.

My older sister raised me for quite some time when we left home and allowed me to do pretty much anything – and anyone – if she thought it would make me happy. Truth be told, I was rarely happy. I was empty – hollow like an old tree stump – deep down inside.

Sex filled the void that I thought needed to be closed up. Being so young at the time, I had the wrong solution to a problem that I couldn't fix on my own. The solution was sex, but sex is never a solution. I know this now, at the age of twenty-three.

I just finished four long years of University, consisting of: stress, anxiety, anger, sadness, frustration, disappointment, men and women, and finally success with the relief of my graduation day.

Having been through so many ups and downs in my life, it was hard to start over with a clear conscious and give people a fair chance at all. I was always living in the past and never in the present. Sure, I thought about the future, but the past always ruled those thoughts and dreams. I had my goals in mind, but my demons were still living in that small apartment that I was renting to them since the age of five. It wasn't entirely my fault, but I was still to blame for the ongoing battle that I was putting myself through.

I didn't have the money to see a therapist and I didn't want to ask for help either. I admitted – many years ago to my boyfriend at the time – that I needed help and that I would get it for free through a school service. I never did. I lied to him because I thought I could handle it all on my own like an independent woman is supposed to. Looking back, I was foolish to think that a strong person never needs help. You don't become strong by fighting all on your own. You still need to make mistakes, stumble, fall and then get picked up by someone else who is much stronger than you.

Television wasn't a huge part of my life, but I did watch a lot of movies, and documentaries as well as I kept myself up to date on current events through social media. I was addicted when I was younger to the attention that I would get and even throughout University I struggled with this behaviour.

Smoking weed was an essential part to my – what I thought it was at least – happiness. It wasn't happiness at all, it was all fake, empty, a mirage. It led me to having sex with over thirty partners before my nineteenth birthday, both male, female, transgender and more than one person at a time. If I was to write a book about my sexual encounters they would all be similar: regretted on this day.

Pleasure and lust controlled me for my entire teen years, even when I did have a good man as a boyfriend. He was older and a virgin. Saving myself for marriage and having morals was something my family never spoke of. They spoke of safe sex, but for them, having sex was an essential part of life, something that everyone did. Looking back on my life, I can see how damaging it really was for me and for my boyfriend – who is still my longest relationship. He gave me his virginity willingly, but I ultimately destroyed the good man he was deep down inside by my actions – my demons' actions.

I was not myself, I was not living like the good person that resided deep down at my core. He always saw the potential in me and maybe that's why he loved me so much. Seeing someone for who they could be instead of what they are has never been possible for me. I've been blinded by my past and the actions of cruel people, which has not allowed me to forgive easily. Insecurity and jealousy ruled my life, and still sometimes does. I've grown over the years, but I still wonder how my ex managed to find peace.