disenchantment

the importance of paying attention to your words

even if i wanted to i don't think i could bare to tell someone close to me these events,
i don't want to give them the full story.
i don't want other people than myself to have to hold this burden and carry it around with them like i do every day, like a secret weight on my shoulders only i know about.
i've told my closest friends fractions of the story, pieces that they could add together like a puzzle if they really wanted to figure it out, though it would be missing a few small pieces, you'd be able to make out the bigger picture.

it all began when i was a child
my parents weren't together, in fact, they never even got married. they were together for a few years just to have my sister and i, then they ended their relationship.

my mom found a boyfriend
his name is not important, as now the name in general makes me disgusted

he may have been in pain but it didn't mean he had to cause pain to others with his words

from the ages of nine to fourteen this man screamed at and threatened my younger sister and i until we were both crying in our rooms, not wanting to leave, not wanting to eat, not wanting to breathe

i remember the days when my mother would work until 9:40 at night, every tuesday, those were the worst. those were the days we cried the most because he had the most time to criticize us and tear us down with every rude word he would spit at us.

i think this is what caused me to be a people pleaser, what lead me to never actually being able to say no or let my voice be heard

after he broke me there were good days and bad

good days were when i could hang out with my friends and pretend like nothing ever happened, like the person who was supposed to be a father figure to me didn't tear me down and break my heart

good days were when i could spend time with my grandmother and go thrift shopping and eat burger king and act like everything was fine and forget about how sad i was at such a young age

bad days were when i would be washing the dishes and start crying because of how often he yelled at me for not washing the dishes right, or for forgetting a spoon, or for accidentally forgetting to unload the dishwasher

bad days were when i would cringe at the sight of someone clenching their teeth, because that's how he would yell. he would clench his teeth and close his eyes and yell at us, like he couldn't even bare to look at us, like he was disgusted by the sight of my sister and i.

the worst days were when his words would really get to me and i'd let any little comment someone made as a joke hurt me. i'd think about him criticizing my every move and it would make me believe no one really wanted to be around me, like i was there to be a pity friend. i would walk behind people on the sidewalk, going unnoticed, i would try to be quiet and when i couldn't do that i'd make them laugh and hide behind a smile to try to make it look like everything was right, even though i'd go home, turn on the shower and cry, thinking about how unwanted i was and how much i wanted to die at the age of fourteen

this is what turned me into a people pleaser
i couldn't bare people yelling at me and i still don't think i could deal with it now.

the day before i was supposed to start high school i was sexual assaulted by someone two years my senior

i had just met him that weekend and i was finally getting attention from a guy i thought was nice

this part is especially hard for me to type because i know that if i had the confidence to say no, i would've never ended up in this situation. but i was too broken, too caught up in wanting to make him happy that even though i said we should leave, that it was too late at night and i wanted to go home, i let him use me, i let him hurt me, and i went with whatever he told me to do, i just tried not to cry.

he didn't rape me but he tried, that's something i still haven't gotten over to this day.

he had his hands down my pants and even though i tried to get away, he had his pants off, i don't think i'll go into more detail but that night just broke me more than i already was

i only told one person about it the day after it happened
it wasn't necessary for more people to know
i felt dirty after that night and not in a way i could just shower away

the first year of high school was hard, i just wished someone could see through my happy exterior and finally ask me what was wrong, finally let me talk and speak everything that was on my mind, even though it was way too complicated for anyone to understand

at the end of ninth grade i ended up moving to my dads house, away from the person who caused my depression, who caused my anxiety, who ruined my childhood

i immediately became much happier
this story does have an odd yet happy ending

i'm still a people pleaser, and i still think about that night sometimes or about the night where i drank too much at a party and a guy touched me too much even when i asked him not to, but i finally realized i have a voice

although i do realize now almost two years after the sexual assault, that i'm finally genuinely happy

i spend too much money on my friends sometimes, ill buy them stuff when it's unnecessary or ill slip back into a weird, awkward phase where i try not to upset anyone

i no longer have depression and my anxiety is manageable, although i do have OCD

i have a new friend group and i think that i can finally say i'm at peace

although my OCD does get in the way sometimes, it's nothing major, it's nothing compared to the other battles i've gone through and i'm finally coming out on top

i'm finally a winner