My Story

My Story- Mads

Trigger Warning: mentions of abuse, death, and sexual assault

My story is a bit odd. Mainly because it starts really far back. Lets start here. I am Mads. I am a seventeen year old female going to school the the US. I lost my father when I was eleven. I think that's where it started.

My father had cancer back when I was about age seven. They thought they got rid of all of it, only for it to resurface when I was ten. I don't remember too much other than sitting in waiting rooms with a drawing book. I remember frozen had come out that year and so I was drawing Olaf at a lot of doctors offices. I found that art was a way to cope with things. It made other people smile and it allowed me to avoid life for a few moments. It made things just a tad bit easier.

I think death has a way of terrifying people. You see, you think it's not there or that it won't happen to you or anyone close to you no matter how many times it's brought up, or how many times the doctors tell you they're not going to make it. I was eleven when my mom interrupted dinner to pack us into the car with hot pockets to rush us to the hospital. I don't think I believed that he was going to die no matter what my mother said. Three days later he was gone. I don't remember being sad. I actually remember being angry. Like I thought that someone else was to blame for him leaving. For him being somewhere other than home. Somewhere I couldn't go or visit.

Unfortunately this caused me to go down a rough path. And before you ask, no. I don't blame him for what happened. I blame the way I handled it. I probably should have opened up about how I was feeling and yet I allowed it to stew in me until I went to my head. I had just gone into sixth grade, and was already dealing with bullying. I was enrolled into a grief program almost instantly and met a friend of mine there. We'll call him William for now. William had lost his father five years prior to mine, so he sort of became my guardian. I allowed myself to fall into the idea that I was safe. That I was alright. William used to protect me from my friends (who at the time were jerks. I had only one good friend out of all of them. Everyone else wanted me to dye my hair or walk them to class.) and bullying. It caused me to trust him and by proxy anyone around him.

I wanted some time away from my friends. Unfortunately they all thought I liked the attention of having my dad die and that I was enjoying all of the sob stories I received (I didn't. But whatever) so I went I hang out with William and some of his friends. He introduced me to some of his friends. One of which I would end up dating the next year (we'll call him Eddie).

Sixth grade kind of goes by quickly. I don't remember too much, probably because I blocked out the first year of my fathers absence. But seventh grade...seventh grade I made a mistake.

Eddie and I had been friends for a year. He was sweet, quiet, and respectful. He had dark brown hair and blue green eyes. He was attractive to say the least. He asked me out March 7th if that year. I of course said yes, despite the fact that all of my friends were telling me to stay away from him. Apparently he had dated an old friend of theirs and it ended poorly. He left her because she was causing too much drama. They only dated for a month. Almost immediately after the girl started spreading rumors that he was cheating on her. Honestly, as much as I disagree with the way his ex girlfriend handled things I probably should have seen the warning signs. The girl has admitted that these claims weren't true, but the fact that she though they were necessary to bring up probably should have tipped off that something must be wrong. If some people could believe this girls false claims with no evidence what-so-ever then there must be a reason that they believed. Something they could sense that I didn't seem to pick up on.

Seventh grade was perfect. We went on little dates and had our anniversaries. It went exactly the way a cute middle school relationship should. Eighth grade was a different story. It wasn't horrible per say, but he did ignore me constantly. He would go into random anger fits at different moments and just overall seemed really detached. I took this as me doing something wrong. I ended up confiding in his friend Zack. Zack told me that it was probably just a phase or something and to ignore it. I believed him. Zack allowed me to hang out with him whenever my boyfriend got to be too much. It helped a little because it meant that I was exposed to the yelling as much. Zack had apparently taken that as an invitation though.