Since I started this blog, I made the exercise to try to remember specific situations and issues about my relationship. I said try to remember because I had erase from my conscience a lot of what happen. I think, well, I know it was my way of coping with it. It had being really difficult for me to do this. Sometimes just remembering is exhausting. My sister had been a key factor in the memory exercise. She has helped me a lot.
Doing this exercise, I came up with a memory from my teenager years. This memory came very vivid and I think it was where I first experience an abusive conduct.
My ex was my high school sweetheart. We first started dating when I was 14 and he was 17. I knew him all my life. He was my neighbor, my brother’s friend. Our families knew each other well.
I think I was 15. We were at his house fixing his car radio. Well, he was fixing it. I was looking. Suddenly, he asked for my help. I was distracted. That pissed him. So, out of nowhere he started yelling and insulting me. He kept going for a long 10 minutes. I can’t recall the exact words but I do remember the way I felt. I felt like a small thing, like the smallest of all. I felt really bad. I almost started to cry but I don’t know why I couldn’t.
I ran to my house. When I got there I went to my bedroom and started to cry. I know that my cry was in part of disbelief and in part because I couldn’t understand what happened. After crying I started thinking about what happened and started to make excuses: Well, he is just like that. He is like his mother. Maybe I should be paying attention of what he was doing.
I never would have thought that was abuse, never in my mind. I was so in love.
To this day, has been difficult to understand that, in fact, it was abuse.
It is now that I know that there can be abuse in a relationship at any age.
The loveisrespect.org (2014) states that: “Nearly 1.5 million high school students nationwide experience physical abuse from a dating partner in a single year. Also, one in three adolescents in the U.S. is a victim of physical, sexual, emotional or verbal abuse from a dating partner, a figure that far exceeds rates of other types of youth violence.”
If I were a teenager at these times I will be part of those statistics. How many teenagers are out there suffering from abuse?
If you are a teen who thinks is suffering of abuse or knows someone who you think is part of an abusive relationship, seek help. Reach a family member, a friend, a school counselor; they can help you. Also, there are some webpages that you can search that can be very helpful. Some are: http://www.loveisrespect.org/ , The National Domestic Violence Hotline (http://www.thehotline.org/), Do something.org (https://beta.dosomething.org/ )
Take care, T.
Story of a camouflage abuse 