Hey guys, welcome back to the second of my sexual assault awareness posts. This will almost definitely be the most difficult to talk about as I have not spoken about it to anyone except for the police. I’ve began this article on the 9th October 2019 and I guess we shall see when it’s done. In this article, I’ll be going into the ways the individual manipulated me until the point of sexual assault. As always, I’ll remind you that viewer discretion is advised, and I do not recommend reading if you are easily triggered buy any of the topics that come up in my other article: “An Overview of my Life Since 2018”. Stay safe, I love you all and never forget you are not alone.
It began with
blink-and-you’ll-miss-it things. First
there was the pushing and shoving. That
was never out of the ordinary – I had other friends who I played “rough and
tumble” with. But there was something
about the way he did it, how he did it, which I felt was much more forceful and
almost threatening. It felt like a
constant reminder that he was strong; he was powerful, and he easily could hurt
me. One day though, one day he very
nearly could have killed me. I still
have nightmares and flashbacks to this day; I’m still scared to walk down the
place it happened. I was walking back
from school with him one day and we were messing around, insulting one another,
as friends do. Then I said something, it
wasn’t even anything that bad, but it angered him. It angered him to the point that he shoved me
in front of a moving lorry then laughed and said it was a shame it didn’t hit
me. I have a feeling some of you are
wondering why I didn’t just ditch him as a friend then. And honestly, I’m not sure why I didn’t. I guess it was because I’d been friends with
him for so long, and I couldn’t bear to lose that.
Then came the
not-so-subtle digs at me as a person. Now, for context, I’m not the smartest
most academic person in the world. I get
by in my lessons, but I’m not top of the class and I’m mostly just average. I’m overall quite happy with where I rank in
English, could possibly manage to scrape a pass in Maths, Science if I put in
the effort I could potentially pass, and the others will hopefully all fall
into place behind that. However, at the
time, I felt as though I wasn’t smart at all (which is totally crazy looking
back at it because I was in either top set or second set for everything and I
was mostly average). I once confided
with him that I felt as though I would never be smart enough to pass my GCSE’s
and so he used that to his advantage.
He’d constantly “poke fun” of me about it to my friends, making me feel
inferior, insecure and unintelligent. He
also knew one of my dream professions as a child – still is now to be fair –
was to become a lawyer and help others.
However, anyone who has investigated that career path will know it’s an
extremely hard job to get into, and my grades did not show the right potential
at that time. He’d make snide comments
about how I’d never amount to anything, never get the grades to do what I
wished to and even said that the only way I’d be able to go up in the world is
by sleeping around. It still shocks me
he said things like that because the most “sexual” thing I’d done was hold
hands with someone! (Sorry Mum and Dad –
what can I say, I was a catch!) It made
me feel disgusted, self-conscious and just all around horrible.
Then he somehow
turned so much worse and controlled me as though I was a puppet on a silver
string. He told me what I could and
couldn’t wear because it could make me look like a “whore”, what I couldn’t do
in public – small things such as walk around with other boys; it could only be
him. He decided who I could hang around
with, when I could hang around with them.
Only now while I’m typing this can I see how horrific this was which
baffles me. He also put me down about
the way I looked, my weight, my face, pretty much everything he said translated
into “I’m not good enough” he said it so much that I began to believe him… And
even therapy is struggling to change that.
His manipulative ways
have affected me in ways I don’t even notice until concerned friends point them
out to me. I feel like I cannot say no
to people, like even if I try, they just won’t listen as that is what happened
with him. If ever someone compliments me
or is even a decent human being to me, I develop a crush on them very quickly –
it’s honestly such an issue at this point it’s now a running joke between me
and a good friend. I guess it’s because
I feel so deprived, so starved of love and confidence that anytime someone is
nice I think they love me – this has been horrific because I’ve gotten into my
fair share of toxic friendships/relationships which is crazy – I’m fifteen for
crying out loud! Finally, the worst effect
of the manipulation is that I go through phases of refusing to speak to
friends. Anyone who knows me in real
life will know all my closest friends are guys – with a few sporadically placed
girls here and there. Every so often, I
get so paranoid they will turn out like him that I refuse to even look at my
friends in the hallway. Once this got so
bad, I refused to speak to any of my friends for about a month and if they
touched me, even accidentally, I’d have a panic attack.
I feel like this is
quite a heavy topic and although it is, I do want to assure you there is a
light at the end of the tunnel! For me,
I now have an amazing group of friends (a massive thanks to all my friends who
have helped me through this and stuck by me – especially but not exclusively
Thumper and my Big Bro. You are both
amazing, I love you and I doubt you’ll ever know how much you mean to me.) I am now doing EMDR therapy which is quite
effective – I will be explaining about all the ins and outs of it soon!
I’ve been asked by a
friend of mine how to know if you’re being manipulated and, truth be told, I’m
not sure. All I can really say is look
after yourself, if anyone makes you feel uncomfortable on more than one occasion,
keep some distance and stay wary. My
friends are an extremely big help in this aspect, and they can normally see the
red flags before I can so if you do get worried, speak to someone you trust about
it. Most of all though, no matter how
long you’ve known them for, people change – and not always fore the
better. That’s one of the main ways he
was able to manipulate and take advantage of me, I’d known him for so long!
Thank you so much for
reading this. My last post on sexual assault
has gotten 110 views currently and I couldn’t be happier. I finally feel like I am making a difference
thanks to all of you! So, thank you so
much for taking the time to read an “angsty teenagers” blog, I feel as though I
have a platform which I can – and will – use to my advantage. This is the one thing in my life I feel as
though I can control so it means tonnes you are all reading this!
I love you all so much, stay safe and remember:
“You can change the world when you change your mind”
Kinky Boots the Musical
xo baby, Tati xoxo
