The Darkness in my Mind

60.

When I was 15 I met this boy named Jack, I met him online and he seemed so interesting. He was a cool smart guy that listened to old music and was good at math. He seemed nice and he was nice to me, we talked a lot and all the time. He made me feel special and any girl at 15 would want to feel special. This was around the time I started losing weight and I was obsessed with how I looked so anyone that looked at me in a good way made me feel on top of the world. I needed that external validation to feel pretty. I'd been bothered about my weight and how I looked for a long time in my life so I needed someone to actually look at me and Jack did. We flirted a lot and it quickly got sexual, we would skype and he would masturbate while we were on skype and I'd see it and he would ask to see me, and I did show him me at times, I showed him my breasts and he would tell me how pretty I was and how amazing my body was. I'd hate myself for showing him my body but I needed that attention and that validation, I'd hate myself and feel dirty but I needed to hear someone tell me I was pretty and worth it. Here's the catch Jack was 22. I'm still trying not to hate myself, he was the adult, he was the one preying on me, he's the bad guy, he's the horrible human being. I was just a kid and I've gotten to a better place but I still think about it sometimes, I've forgotten about it for the most part but when I think of the way I feel now, I can't deny the fact that he played a role in that. I don't hate him and I don't think he's a bad person. He thought I was easy because I was a kid that needed love and he took advantage of that, he did a bad thing but he wasn't a bad person but that bad thing he did shaped me as a person. I don't want to be with anyone, I'm afraid to open up to people, I still show people my body for validation, I'm afraid to be with anyone because I don't want them to think I'm easy and I can't tell anyone about him because I feel like a fucking fool for talking to someone online and for showing him my body. And I know how society is, people are going to look at me like I'm the slut and to be honest I feel like a slut but I have to remind myself always that I am not a bad person and that I was a kid. It's crazy to think back to the past and see what started it all and why it happened, all the bad things tied up together caused me to end up here today thinking about him and what happened 3 years ago. I don't regret it, what's the point of regretting it, I can't change the past, I can only grow from it and the past made me who I am today, a wise person that has made mistakes and survived. I'm a survivor, I've lived and learned.