*I apologize for any spelling or grammatical errors that make this difficult to read-- also, I did my best to edit out any and all names, but if you notice any, please let me know. This blog was never intended to be read but anyone but myself-- I wrote it on a particularly depressing night. This post is the reason for the existence of this blog*

I hate myself. I honest to God think that most of the people that I love would be so much better off without me. Really. Most of them would disagree. But they don’t know what trash I really am. What I’m really made up of. I mean, the only thing that makes humans different from one another is our experiences, right? I’m fucking worthless.

This is something I’m writing that I know I will never let anyone else see. But seeing as this computer is password protected I can say whatever the fuck I want.

When this next part was going on, I would go with my sister—who was 16—to town and hang out with the locals. My parents didn’t let me go with her a lot and made me be home by ten—but they didn’t think there was anything to worry about, after all, I was only with my big sister and they even checked up on us every now and then. What happened was something that, even though my parents are great parents—strict even—couldn’t have been foreseen or stopped because honestly, I wasn’t doing anything blatantly wrong. I was just hanging out with my honor roll, band geek, fun loving sister.

When I was 13 and 14 years old numerous grown men (aged 20+) took advantage of my naïve and innocent nature. I was coerced into sex acts with these men. Most of it was pretty mild, kissing and petting. But there were times where they would convince me to have oral sex with them. There were 2 of these men. D and K. The one of them that made me feel particularly special, D, convinced me on more than one occasion that this is what I should do if I wanted to be with him—for the moment, anyway. There was one other man, K, that got me to do this for about 5 seconds before I jumped away because a wall of tears exploded from my face and I sobbed like the child I really was in the fetal position on the passenger side of his truck while he was as shocked as I was at my reaction. (Looking back I realize that he was just being selfishly worried that I would tell on him—a hindsight that was later confirmed at a small house party in years to come). The guy admitted that for the next 4 months he would lay awake at night scared that the cops were going to arrest him). In my middle school mind, oral sex wasn’t sex. They would say things like, “Come one, you’ve led it up to this. What do you expect? Are you just going to build me up and not do anything? You’re going to let me go home with blue balls tonight? I’ll take you back if you’re not going to do this. I thought you really liked me. I really like you. I could see myself marrying a girl like you someday.” They informed me that blueballs was one of the most painful conditions that man knows that arises from no sexual release after a buildup of sexual tension. They also let me know that being a tease was something that NO girl wanted to be labeled as. Little did I know that there were worse things than being a tease—for instance, being a slut. Or realizing later that you were taken advantage of. Nothing more than an opportunity, a mechanism used in expulsion of vile bodily fluids. I looked back for the longest time with shame on this part of my life. Shame. In all actuality I should be proud of myself because I kept my virginity. I knew—because my mom told me—that your virginity was something to hold onto until you find someone that you knew loved you. In reality, those periods of my life were ones of molestation. I was molested. Anyone that brings up those times to embarrass me—yes there are people who do—I now have the presence of mind and courage to say, “Oh, yeah? How about this—I was 13 (or 14) years old, they were AT LEAST 20 or older!! How fucking cool are those guys now? Tell me, how cool are they? You have a 2 year old daughter now, she’ll be 13 in no time at all. When she’s 13, I DARE you to think about me. How guilty am I?”

By the age of 15 I had learned how to charm my way in life. I learned how to talk to boys. I learned that I have a choice and that I can say no and people will still like me.

I got a boyfriend, V. He seemed like a great guy. Popular, smart, athletic and had goals and future plans. I dated him for 1.5 years. We waited about 5 months to sleep together. He said he loved me. It was on Valentine’s Day. I had promised him before that I would have sex with him on that day. I didn’t love him. I liked him. At first. It was about money and companionship. I kissed a lot of different guys while we were together but he was no angel either. While housesitting he had sex with me when I repeatedly said I didn’t want to. He kept asking and I kept saying no. The last time he asked I didn’t say anything at all. He came over to me and I looked away and was still. I was quiet. I didn’t SAY anything. I was wearing a night shirt. He climbed on top of me, still I said nothing. About 3 minutes into I just started crying—do you see a pattern here? I cried the rest of the way through. When he was finished he climbed off, zipped his pants. I was in my familiar fetal position on the couch crying like it was going out of style. He mumbled sorry. Then, without further discussion, walked out of the house and I heard his truck start outside. We never talked about what happened that night. I don’t think he knows what kind of impact that night had on me. This marks the time of my Diagnosis of Depression and my prescribing of Zoloft.

After V and I broke up (well, really, I called him after he was being especially emotionally distant at a basketball game and asked him if things were through. He said they were.) I gave his ring back the next day and was a mess at school. The boy I gave my virginity to just told me he didn’t want me anymore. Later that week, he told me that he didn’t love. He told me he NEVER loved me. The boy who I gave my virginity to told me he never loved me. I was a mess. It was March 2004.

And think about this—when you pictured V do you expect him to be some kind of loser pumping gas now? No. He’s almost finished studying aeronautical engineering at a major us university—and he’s engaged to be married to a ‘nice girl’ he started dating a week after forgetting about me. And I’ve kept quiet about the scummy things he’s done to me. Ha, that’s life isn’t it? It would RUIN lives if I told people the things I know.

I was 16 years old.

Shortly thereafter, I started ‘secretly’ seeing a man, A.  He was 21. I took a ‘purity vow’ at my church youthgroup. I broke that vow a month later. I just wanted acceptance from anywhere I could get it. He told my sister that he was thinking about breaking up with me for her. I found out about it. I beat him to the punch and I broke up with him.

A few months went by, and by the time late July rolled around I started hanging out with D’s younger brother Q. We went ‘road trippin’ (that’s to say that we went driving around drinking alcohol). I met B. Now, you should know that up until this point I had never pursued a boy or man in my whole life. B was 17. B was tall and handsome. B was nice. B was funny. B was going to be mine—whether he knew it or not. From that point on I did everything I could to be around B.  Within 3 or 4 months B had broken up with a girl and B was mine. We started being a couple Oct 21st, 2004.

B and I are together today. We have broken up 2 times that I would consider major. The first time I thought that I didn’t want to be with B. I thought that I was too young to know what I wanted. I thought I was 18 and that I should see what else was out there. I was scared that I was in love. I was scared that I would have my heart broken. B and I still ‘dated’ through the whole breakup. We had an agreement that we would not sleep with other people. I promised him that I wouldn’t hurt him in that way. Looking back now I think I was having a mental breakdown of sorts. I did all kinds of crazy, out of character things that I wouldn’t have done in a normal mind—for instance getting a tattoo. All the same, I take complete responsibility for the things that I did. During a particularly self-destructive period, August the 21st 2006 to be exact, I got into an argument with B about whether I should drive up to see him because he had just moved up to a town 3 hours away for school. He didn’t say goodbye, but I still wanted to drive up and see him. I had gotten out of school and it was about 8pm. I wanted to drive up to see him. He didn’t want me to come up. He had school early the next morning. I didn’t understand that. I was really hurt. He had been acting distant (didn’t say goodbye before he left) and now he didn’t want me to drive to see him.

I spiraled out of control and went to a 27 year old man’s house that I had met shortly after B and I broke up. We watched some TV and began to kiss. This was it, in my head, I was done with B. I don’t need him anymore. “I don’t love him anymore” was what my angry mind kept telling my aching heart. I’m not saying that what I did next I did because of B, but I will say that I did what I did because I wanted to prove to myself that I didn’t want B anymore. We went to his room. He wasn’t pushy, he was straightforward. He kissed me. He could tell I was still shy in a weird way. I was scared. I eventually came to the point where I said, “Ok, this is it. I’m going to do this.” And he climbed over me and I swear to God he had only barely begun—the whole act was no more than 6 seconds before it hit me. It fell on me so hard that my head spun. I was going to be sick. I scrambled out of his bed and threw on my pants. I didn’t even have my shoes on before I was running out of his apartment. The tears didn’t hit me yet. My heart had won the fight. I now heard it loud and clear. It was telling me that I had fucked up. It was telling me that I just lost the most wonderful man that I had ever met and would ever meet. It was telling me, 1 minute too late that I should have never come to this place. I should have stayed at home. In that moment I realized just how much I loved B and really just wanted his acceptance. The 27 year old called after me, “Are you okay?”  I just shook my head and sped away. I first called my sister and told her what I had done. I told her that I was going to call B as soon as I got home. As soon as I got out of my moving car. She was upset with me but didn’t yell at me. I was now crying uncontrollably. I wondered if they would know it was suicide if I just drove really fast off of the road. Would they know what I had done? Would they just rule it out as reckless teen driving? But I had made it home. Now I was going to call B. I told him the news. He was really hurt. I expected this. He never said he hated me. I didn’t expect this. He asked me, crying, “How can you do the worst? How can you do what we had promised we hadn’t done? How could you hurt me like this?” That question still makes me cry at night. That hurt in his voice is what I can hear right now. Guess what; I’m crying now. I will never forgive myself. Ever.  That was the most suicidal I have ever felt in my life. He knew it. I told him I wanted to die. I wanted to die for hurting him. I didn’t deserve him, I didn’t deserve air and I didn’t’ deserve hell. I hated myself worse than I thought possible. He went from yelling at me in anger to asking ME if I was okay. I couldn’t keep talking to him anymore. I didn’t deserve to talk to him. I went to bed and cried the whole night. B called my house phone after my cell phone went dead and asked my parents if I was there and if I was okay. That’s all he wanted to know. He called to make sure that I was okay. He called because he was worried that I would hurt myself.

The next day I drove up to see him at school because I thought he deserved a face to face apology. He deserved the right to yell at me to my face and tell me I was as worthless as I was. Face to face. When I arrived on his doorstep—the first thing he did was put his arms out. He was going to hug me. I didn’t deserve this. I cried so much that day. I cried and cried and cried. He said it was okay. He said he was really hurt, and he wasn’t over what I had done and that he was still mad and it would take a long time to forgive me, but he said he still loved me. He kissed me. From that day on, he knew that I was done pretending that I didn’t want him. From that day on I was waiting for HIM to take ME back. I was waiting for him to ask me to be his girlfriend again. He eventually did. He did before our 2 anniversary. I remember saying that I would tractor pull for him when I was his girlfriend again. At a tractor pull a week later, he said, “I’m ready for you to be my girlfriend again. Are you?” I said yes. It has been hard work since that night in August. 

One night in late April 2007 after weeks of me and B not getting along, B came to my house before he left for school one night and we had an adult talk and decided that we weren’t working out. Deep down I knew that it was because he could forget what I had done. It was in the little things he said and the way he would look at me that he would let me know--he couldn’t forget the hurt I caused. Neither could I. The guilt was constant and the pain that I caused myself was unrelenting. I couldn’t expect him to forgive me when I couldn’t forgive myself. Once again, we were dating still but we weren’t a couple. He wouldn’t let me promise him anything this time around.

I believed that B had finally realized that he deserved better than me. In the beginning, I kept asking him if he wanted to get back together with me. But he stood his ground. While we were apart I could let go of my feelings of guilt—though I could never fully relinquish them. To pass the time and to make myself feel more worthwhile I started to casually date a boy, W. W had his eye on me for some time and was what a lot of girls would consider ‘handsome’. I wasn’t really interested but that didn’t stop me from dating him. We were never more than just friends. I knew that he was never going to be someone I wanted to be with. B was who I wanted. W knew that the whole time I was with him that I really wanted to be with B. When W would kiss me, I think he knew that more than anything in the world I would rather it be B.  I took W to a biology survival party and that evening and later we went to my house and watched TV in my room. From the start I told W that I would never sleep with him. I told him that I never wanted to go that far with anyone but B ever again—or for as far into the future as I could imagine. We even discussed this issue and my ‘no sex’ policy on the way to my house. I know it frustrated W that I would only allow him to kiss me but I would have sex with B whenever he wanted. B had my heart. W only merely had my time. 

This next part is the ONLY thing that B doesn’t know about me. He knows everything else there is to know and I’ve never kept a secret. This isn’t a secret that I feel the need to share. For once in my life I don’t feel guilty now for what I’m about to write. I feel that if I told B now about this that he wouldn’t understand why I didn’t take more ‘official’ action and he would probably try to kill W.

While watching TV W rolled over on me and tickled me. I was wearing skirt. I started laughing and told him to stop horsing around. He kissed me. I let him kiss me. He fumbled around while kissing—I thought nothing of it-- He knew that kissing was as far as I would let him go. But then W did something that I never thought W would never do. He attempted to penetrate me. THANK GOD I was wearing bulky boycut cotton walmart no-give panties that day and that I fidgeted at just the right time or W would have successfully raped me. I felt pressure between my legs and jumped away quicker than anything I had even done in my life. I. Was. Fucking. Pissed. I yelled, “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!?!?!” and he instantly started crying and saying, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry!” (He knew immediately that what he had done was VERY wrong). I pointed at the door and stayed where I was. I could hear him crying as I heard him also exit. I walked to the door to make sure he was driving away and he turned and sobbed, “I’m so sorry.”

We went from talking on the phone in friendly conversation at least 2 times a day to not speaking for a week. Finally, he broke the silence and called me. He wanted to tell me that he’d been physically sick thinking about what he had done and worrying that at any time he was going to look out the window and see a police cruiser coming to arrest him for the attempted raping of me. (I notice a lot of patterns in my life. Do you catch on about what I’m talking about?).  He said that he was really sorry and that he never meant to get out of hand like that. I told him that, ‘Nothing happened. Just forget about it. Pretend nothing happened.’ Then he said, “How can I forget about it when you never even talk to me anymore. I lost you for good as a friend. I can’t forgive myself until you forgive me.” I told him that I didn’t think I could forgive him for a long time and that he could never be as close to me as he once was, but that I could try to rebuild our FRIENDSHIP only. He invited me to a shooting part where my presence only made him sad and I ended up kissing him because I felt bad about him feeling bad—I knew that if I kissed him he would think that he had been forgiven and he would stop feeling bad, which would eventually make me stop feeling bad. (I am so self loathing that I came to feel like it was my fault for letting him tickle me and get that close to me. I made it out to be my fault, in my mind). I left his house and went to B’s, which was where I yearned to be all along. I rarely hung out with W after that night.

That night B told me that he felt like we had drifted even farther apart and that he thought that he had lost me to W. He told me that he felt like I was spending a lot of time with W and that I didn’t want him anymore. He couldn’t be farther from the truth. It came out that this whole thing WAS because he didn’t feel like he could forgive me. In his words, “I just can’t stop thinking about it.” He said that he realized too late that he could forgive me and that he had forgiven me now and wanted to be with me but he felt that we were too far apart now, because of all the time I had spent with W. I just blurted it out: I feel like I will never forgive myself for hurting you. At the same time, I can’t keep on feeling like I don’t deserve you either. I don’t need to be in a relationship that hurts me as much as ours. Every time I think about you—I think about how I hurt you. Every time I kiss you, I think about how I don’t deserve you. I want you back more than you will ever know—but I won’t do it until I know that you’re done punishing me; because truth be told, I’m punishing myself more than you ever could. From that day on we were no longer moving backward, but we were making baby steps forward. I was now the one that needed more time. I didn’t want to be a part of a couple with him until I felt I was worthy of him. I wanted to be a little healthier this time. He deserved the best I had and I wanted to start out this last time with just that—the best I could offer. It took some time. It took some serious thoughts and talking. We decided that before we got back together that this was the last time. There would be no more breaking up and getting back together. It was just unhealthy and hurtful to us and it looked flaky to everyone else. This was it. We were placing all of our chips on this last go—I thought I owed it to us to start out with my best.

Me and L (a girl pal of mine) decided that we were a little stir crazy on one particular evening that B was busy. I saw W briefly that night and we had talked. He was bored as well. The three of us—me L and W—decided we would drive up to Chicago IL and back in one night. The whole trip—to and from-- took a total of about 12 hours. This was the last time I spent any length of time with W. Being in that city with L and W made me miss B and realize that I was ready to be with him again. I told him I was ready to be his the next day. It was Late June 2007.

I haven’t given W much thought at all and in fact avoided thinking about him or talking to him. I saw him at a shoe store recently and gave him a hug and asked him how he was, but that was it. Even that interaction was forced.

That is, until today I hadn’t given W much thought.

That is because today we talked about Rape in my human sexuality class.