Anita, thank you again for taking the time to reply. You give really good advice :)I’ve waited before replying back because I really wanted to reflect and think about what you’ve said as well as how I feel about….everything. I feel like if I were to just up and leave my boyfriend I would probably get into a another abusive co-dependent relationship. The problem isn’t really with him, its with me. I am the one who is co-dependent and really using him to fill that hole created by an abusive, traumatic childhood. My number one priority is finding a therapist and working through my issues then if the relationship has hope I will try and work at it but if it doesn’t work out I will be okay because I will be healed from the depression and co-dependency and free to move on. I don’t think he is a bad persons. I know he had a horrible childhood as well (worse than mine) but I can’t fix that for him. I wish I could but I can’t. I will recommend him finding a therapist but it is ultimately his choice. I’m ready to heal so I am going to do everything I can to be free and live a happy life. Thank you so much Anita, You have no idea how much you’ve helped me. I will leave my email (butterfly21baby@gmail.com) if you ever want to contact me 🙂

Lakra thank you for replying. I really appreciate it. I know you are right in everything you said. I need to physically move out before I start to heal emotionally but moving out is close to impossible for me. My mom does try to help me but I can’t stay with her. She would ask me to go to a shelter because she has twelve kids and five grand kids living with her. I went straight from my parent’s house to be with him. When I was in my parents’ home I was homeschooled and had very few social interactions. I don’t have any friends. The few friends I had were online when I was a teenager and he made me erase their numbers & emails when we started dating. My siblings are spread out all over the country living their lives and to be honest I was never close with anyone. I was the black sheep so to speak so I don’t have a relationship with any of them except the younger ones still living at home and they can’t help me. I am also scared of the world. I don’t know why but I have this constant fear and anxiety whenever I step outside. I feel ashamed of myself for being so pathetic. I try to take steps but it is difficult for me. I don’t really know where to start. I don’t have a job so without him I have no income. He has the bank cards and car keys and everything. I want to change. I really want to do something different but I don’t know what I should do first.

Thank you so much Glet. I’m trying every hour to take baby steps. I’m not giving up but sometimes I wish I could. I want to change and be happy. I don’t feel like I am able to live without him. I know that is ridiculous to say but it is how I truly feel. I am trying though…

Anita, thanks for replying. I’m just going to tell you everything. As a child I was very attached to my mom. I don’t even remember it but I’m told I would follow her everywhere holding onto her leg. When she started working (because my dad refused to and we were close to being homeless at the time) it was very hard for me. I didn’t want her to leave and I was scared of her being gone. I just remember being very fearful of her leaving and begging her not to go. I didn’t know what to do with myself so I would hold a piece of her clothing and cry myself to sleep. My parents have 12 kids and I’m number six so I was the middle child in a large family. I felt lost, forgotten and unwanted. I have no idea what love feels like. My siblings were hurting themselves. We were often neglected so they would group up and try to survive with each other. I never grouped up with any of my siblings. I just stayed by myself. I only have two memories of my dad from my childhood. The first one I remember standing and looking out of a doorway. I think we were moving because people were going in and out. I remember I couldn’t find my mom so i was crying and then I remember him hitting me and the memory stops. The second memory is of him trying to keep a coin away from me. He would put it in his pocket and tell me to reach in and get it. I would grab it but he would take it away and put it back in his pocket and tell me to get it again.I remember him winking at me and asking if my mom had ever told me never to put my hands in a man’s pocket. He was laughing at me and I didn’t know why. I had no idea what was going on until I saw this happen in a movie and it was explained as sexual abuse. I’ve never told anyone that before. Other than that he wouldn’t say two words to me. He acted like I was a ghost or like I didn’t even exist unless he was hitting me with his belt which he did often. One time he hit me across my face with the belt and I remember my mom making me stay indoors. He has never once hugged me or told me he loves me. I know it’s because he doesn’t. I don’t really feel anything about that situation. When it comes to him I don’t have any feelings at all. One day when I was 10 or 11 years old I just walked down to our basement and tied a piece of string around my neck and hooked the other end of the string to the banister. Of course nothing happened but I remember I wanted to kill myself because I was tired of being so sad and scared all the time. Around this time I had really bad nightmares and I was just really scared at night and that was the time she was going in to work. As a teen I would spend the entire day obsessing over the evening and how she was going to leave and what was I going to do. Around this time my dad started working too. I had very few interactions with him as usual. I was in love with the library as a teen. I would go there and try to read every book I could get my hands on. anyway one time I was going to my room with a book in my hands and on the back of the book it said something about the protagonist’s boyfriend being a “sex god”. My dad saw it and “oh sex god huh?” and winked at me. I remember feeling very uncomfortable. I tried to explain that it was just a book and that I didn’t know that was even on the back of it but he was just smiling at me and I felt disgusted with myself so I ran to my room and stopped going to the library. He called me a dyke once, I don’t know why. By that point I was cutting my wrists with razor blades every night. It was pretty much the only thing that gave me comfort. When I was sixteen I got a job at a fast food restaurant. It was horrible. My co-workers made fun of me because I was so anti-social. The manager wanted to promote me to a shift leader and the other co-workers were mad at me because of that so they just made working there a living hell. I would cry in the bathroom stall during break. The only people who paid me any attention were the guys and they wanted me to do sexual stuff with him which I did even though I didn’t want to. I was numb when it happened. I didn’t know how to say no. I didn’t even think I could say no. But then one of the guy’s girlfriend found out and she called me a whore/slut/bitch. I felt so bad and disgusted with myself. I just wanted to go. I just wanted to leave this world. I took a gun from my dad’s closet and put it in my mouth and pulled I didn’t know it was empty so nothing happened. When I told my mom what I did she took me to a therapist who told me I had to be hospitalized because she asked me if I still wanted to die and I admitted to her that yes I did, badly. She I went to the in-patient hospital. At the hospital they put me on meds and my therapist kept asking me if someone had molested me as a child. I didn’t know how to answer her question so I just wouldn’t say anything. One day during our sessions she asked again and I said yes someone had. I don’t know why I said that because I have no memory of anyone molesting me but I just said yes and to this day I wish I hadn’t said that because everything changed. My mom came to the hospital and asked me if it was my dad and I said I couldnt remember which is the truth but she left and the next thing I heard was that she had called the police and moved. I was in shock and scared. I stayed in the hospital for about 2 months before my doctor said I could be discharged. When I left and went to stay with my mom there wasn’t any room for me at her new house and I remember feeling alone and like she had just left me. I was in and out of hospitals until I met my now boyfriend. I thought things were looking up but my mom would do things that hurt me like forcing me to say my dad had molested me and buying me these sexual abuse books to read and asking me to talk with her friends about it. I did everything she asked because I wanted her to be happy. I found out that she and my boyfriend had talked about me behind my back and that my mom told him that he shouldn’t stay with me because I’m a whore that sleeps with a bunch of men and that she wouldn’t be surprised if I “initiated” the sexual abuse from my dad. I was so hurt and just crushed by her saying that because I love her so much, She meant the world to me and I was so sad that she thought of me that way. Before my boyfriend told me that my mom had said this I was happy for the first time in my life. After he told me I was just…gone. I didn’t exist anymore. I can’t explain to you the hurt I still feel over this. It is the kind of pain you would put an animal done for. It’s the kind of pain you would just let that person die out of mercy. My boyfriend told me to cut all ties with her so I did. We didn’t speak for 5 years after that. I moved across the country with my boyfriend and thats when all the co-dependency and emotional abuse happened. I just now started talking with my family again. I told my mom and everyone that I lied about being sexually abused. I didn’t tell them that I had never said it was my dad and that my mom had said all that because I just fault like I was wrong. I feel like my family is disgusted with me when I see them. I asked one of my sisters and she said she doesn’t hate me but she is mad at me for lying on our dad. The only person who doesn’t act like they hate me is my biological brother. When he saw me he told me he was sorry about what happened to me and then he told me that he doesn’t remember if our dad ever molested him, I didn’t ask him if it had happened to him he just told me he couldn’t remember but he did remember our dad telling him about the kind of sex he had with our mom. Apparently our dad would make my brother stand there while he described having sex with our mom and what she looked like to my brother who was only like twelve years old at the time. Needless to say my brother is also depressed and suicidal. It is possible my issues with my boyfriend are related to the issues I have with my parents. I am a very hurting person. I am very sad. I have been sad the majority of my life. I am tired of crying. I am tired of feeling this way. I can be strong but I don’t know where to turn or if I’ll ever get any peace in my life. I’ve been on meds, tried therapy, hospitalization, self help books, religion, etc. You name it I’ve probably tried it. I’ve been battling this for almost 15 years now. I don’t want to do it another year, or minute. I’m afraid of the humiliation of going inpatient but I’m at a point here today where I just feel hopeless.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 4 months ago by Rocky.
• This reply was modified 9 years, 4 months ago by Rocky.
• This reply was modified 9 years, 4 months ago by Rocky.